IronyAbounds

In a thread claiming tout facts, I'd think you would be better about the facts you are presenting. Today's game was as bad as anything Geno has done. Also, Mike Glennon, who was drafted well after EJ, is starting and playing better than EJ has. I understand the desperate desire that EJ be the answer at QB, but so far he has not shown that he is the guy to lead the Bills to the promised land, or even a .500 record for that matter.

EJ is a poor man's Thad Lewis

More than anything it is the front office. Jauron was a bad hire, the Gailey and Nix hires were just laughable, and even if Marrone and crew turn out ok, they still have to deal with the numbskulls in the front office. No excuse whatsoever for ending up with EJ and Tuel as your top 2 QBs. No T Jax would not turn the team into a Super Bowl contender, but he was there for not that much money, which they instead gave to Kolb, who is brittle as a banana dunked in liquid nitrogen. I understand the concept that releasing Fitz, another mediocre starter but capable backup, saved some cap room, but then you go into season 20M below the salary cap. They stick with just the 2 QBs and leave Thad Lewis, yet another decent backup, on the Practice Squad so you have no option other than Jeff Tuel to take over in the very winnable Cleveland game, well, it was winnable except you had to play Tuel, who likely would have trouble making another team's Practice Squad, let alone the active roster. Of course, I guess why should the team care. You have plenty of fans shocked, just shocked that someone says that a 3-6 team sucks. Of course it sucks. 3-6 teams by definition suck. No playoffs in 14 years suck. 13 out of 14 years with a losing record sucks. The fact that it is the only team I will root for is what sucks the most. It's like having a child who really isn't a good kid. You have to love them, you want to see the bright side of everything, you think it will be different this time, but at the end you're just left with a rotten kid. Well, as Bills fans we are left with a team that sucks.

Unlike the Bills, which disappoint every year, without fail.

This isn't the Special Olympics. You don't give a guy a purple ribbon just for competing. Tuel is out of his depth as an NFL QB. Period.

I love how someone thinks they know how someone should be a fan. Goodness, this isn't something where there is one right way and one wrong way. Bills always have been and always will be #1 for me, but the Browns were my team in the NFL before the NFL-AFL merger and I continue to hope they do well. When they play the Bills I want the Bills to win, as long as the Bills aren't just playing the spoiler role. Of course, the past how many years both teams suck so it hasn't made much difference.

Apparently you removed the Baltimore game from your memory banks. EJ in that game was terrible. I have to laugh at this whole discussion. You would have thought EJ was Tom Brady Part 2 given the comments about him. His play and Lewis' play have been remarkably similar. EJ was a bit better on the short game, Lewis has been better in the long game, but essentially their stats and the way they have moved the offense has been virtually the same. With that said, EJ will always get the starting nod if both are healthy simply because the FO would never allow some journeyman off the practice squad to take over in place of a #1 pick. It just doesn't work that way in the NFL, let alone Buffalo.

The problem with Bills' fans is that we are like abused spouses. We are abused on an annual basis with crap teams that show occasional glimpses of promise, so we tell everyone, no no, it's ok, it will get better, the team means well and really will be good in the future, only to face the abuse of watching the crap rear its ugly head again and again. We stick with the Bills because we do not think there is any alternative (and in reality, as long as the team is in Buffalo there will never be an alternative to being a Bills' fan) no matter how heart-breaking it is year after year after year of rebuilding and tearing down and rebuilding again. Some people blowing off steam on a message board should be the least of a Bills' concerns.

Compared to the Bills' last game against the Patriots, in New England, btw, the Bills' offense gained 195 fewer yards while its defense gave up 84 more yards. Clearly progress has been made. Seriously, however, I love how everyone is blaming the Bills' turnovers for the loss while ignoring the fact that the Pats turned the ball over as well, at a greater cost. It is also indisputable that the Patriots did not have anywhere close to the weapons on offense that they had last year and they still gained well north of 400 yards. I was foolishly pessimistic going into this game, thinking Brady would pick apart the Bills' lousy secondary. With the crappy receivers NE had available for this game, the Bills should have won. Everyone who is saying Pettine is the greatest should also consider that a guy who had 304 career yards in two seasons just rushed for over 100 yards. Sorry, the defense was not stellar today, not by a long shot.

Hard to believe that the Bills with its secondary are going to win this game. The offense could score 35, or it could score 3, there is absolutely no way to know how EJ will perform given his limited playing time in the preseason (two series against starters is not a sufficient amount of time to get ready for the NFL). What EJ needs to do is enough so that the Patsies can't load the line and shut down Spiller. Anything beyond that is really expecting too much at this point. I'm thinking NE 38 to 17.

This. Because we all know the ONE thing that has kept the Bills from making the playoffs these past 14 years has been the fans' lack of blind optimism.

4-12 3 home wins, 1 on the road. It's hard enough to win in the NFL with just one good CB. For almost half the season the Bills will not only have no good CBs, but all lousy CBs. Also, EJ may well turn out to be a good QB, but anyone thinking he will be anything above barely average the first half of the season is smoking some very powerful stuff. He's raw, he's had a truncated pre-season, and he really has yet to face a real starting defense playing at regular season speed. How the Bills' young receivers will perform is another complete unknown. The Bills could easily be 0-8 heading into the home game with the Chiefs.

I don't recall. Is it busboy or dishwasher?

Perhaps the goal here is to leave the Pats over-confident heading into Week 1 and this whole past week has been nothing but an elaborate illusion.

It's despicable that fans have to purchase these games as part of their season ticket package. The Bills should be sued for fraud since the product on the field today in no way resembles a professional football team. DISCLAIMER: Before anyone gets their panties in a wad, I know it's preseason and this game is meaningless. I don't want Marrone fired and I'll be rooting for the Bills all year no matter how much they may end up sucking.

I think Rogers cooked his own goose in game 1 when he just sat and watched the Colts return Tuel's "fumble." If a guy fighting for a roster spot doesn't give 100% all the time, he won't be fighting for a roster spot for long.

Given the injuries, the problems in the secondary, questions about the OL, and adapting to a new system, I see 4-12, with home wins against the Jets, Dolphins, Panthers and Chiefs. The Bills got unlucky with the schedule this year having to play Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville on the road. Those would have been winnable home games. Conversely, having to play Baltimore, Cincinnati and Atlanta at home provided games that are likely losses no matter what. Flip the venues of those six games around and they go 7-9. I still think Marrone will work out in the end, but this year is going to be fugly.

Yep, it is not at all unusual for a "minor procedure" to ultimately end up being a major problem. Not saying that is the case here, but essentially putting "a QB Needed" listing on Craigslist - NFL is a good indication that EJ's minor procedure is not a trifling matter.

And practice conditions exactly match regular season game conditions.

^^^^ This (we have no clue at all about EJ's ability to go deep in the NFL), plus the lack of offensive production against the 1st team defenses. If QBs can't perform against first stringers, CJ is going to be one tired (and most likely injured) dude.

1. I had no clue who Marrone was when he was hired, but I like what I've seen since. 2. I think the defense will prove to be far more improved than the offense and the key to a better season. 3. A big reason why I think #2 is true is that the offense has sputtered early in the two preseason games against the starters on defense, with both EJ and Kolb, even though those defenses have been pretty vanilla. EJ has looked good, but it would have been nice for him to have had the time in game 3 to play against the starting defense for an extended time. Being thrown in on Week 1 of the regular season with only 2 series against starters is a scary proposition. 4. It would have been nice to see EJ at least make one attempt downfield before the season starts. Dinks and Dunks will not cut it against most starting defenses, particularly if the offense has no credible deep threat. With Goodwin on the team, the Bills can stretch the field as long as the QB is capable of going deep. Maybe EJ can do it in real game conditions, but we simply don't know.

The way sports works, Tuel could be the second coming of Peyton Manning and EJ will get every chance to succeed and then some simply because he was a No. 1 pick and teams don't want to be seen as blowing a No. 1 pick. EJ looked ok yesterday, although one could not tell if he can throw a long ball since EVERYTHING was dink and dunk, but in any event Tuel looked much better, although the guys on Indy's defense at the time may have had something to do with that. I just hope the Bills keep three QBs, because it is not hard to imagine Kolb getting hurt (Christ, the guy will probably break a foot getting out of bed), and Tuel will be needed at one point or another, and there is no way he stays on the practice squad if he isn't on the final roster.

I certainly hope the Jets crash and burn, and I don't think Geno will do much, but as a Bills' fan, before I go bagging on the Jets or any other team, I want the Bills to do something, you know, like make the playoffs for the first time in an eternity. Given Buddy's crappy drafting I'm going to hold my tongue and see how this crop of draftees perform before bashing anyone else's draft acumen.

Getting rid of Gailey was an absolute necessity. At some point you'd have to fire him since he is an incompetent head coach (and I'm not so sure he was a great coordinator either, after all the Chiefs dumped him just before the regular season started), so whatever year period the firing starts it is better to start it now rather than one or two years down the road. Nix also needs to go. His drafts have been mediocre at best and his handling of the QB position has been atrocious. I'm sure Gailey is a nice guy, but you have to wonder what the heck he was thinking when he said he done a turn around at two other places. His work with the Cowboys was not generally considered a success (fired after two years), nor was his tenure at Georgia Tech (again, fired after a bunch of middling seasons. He wasn't successful as a head coach ever, and aside from a decent last half of the 2010 season and a good start to the 2011 season the Bills have looked terrible under Gailey. 7-19 in the last 26 games speaks volumes about what direction Gailey was taking the Bills. Like I said, he may be a nice guy, but praise the Lord the clown is gone as the Bills' head coach.

Pittsburgh got bit by the injury bug this year, Tomlin is a good coach and they'll be back. Saints will regroup after this year, and only the Chiefs and the Jets are likely to be clearly worse. If Gailey is the coach, 5 wins max, perhaps 4 if Rancid Futzpathetic is the QB. With a new coach and a new QB, they might make a play for 7. The tragedy of this year is the wasting of an incredibly easy schedule. I'm sure Gailey and Nix are nice guys who might make good company over a beer, but they are horribly over their heads in their present positions and the Bills' fans have been royally screwed over by the ineptness of this organization once again.