hondo in seattle

Here's my problem with Bledsoe... His first year with the Bills (2002), he averaged 284 ypg before the bye. After the bye, only 204 ydg. In his next two seasons with us, he averaged less than 200 ypg. He had one half of a good season with us. But he probably would have done better with the Drought All-Star roster.

What's kind of stunning about this is that if we take our very best players from a 17-year stretch of time, we still don't end up with a Super Bowl roster.

Improve: Torrence. He looked like an All Pro at times last season. This year he improves his consistency. I do think someone else on the team will probably take a larger step forward. There are a few candidates, but to me Torrence is the safer bet. Regress: Daquan. I really hope the ultimate 'winner' of this category doesn't turn out to be Milano, but I admit the possibility.

I don't believe it. But I like it!

Agreed. We can criticize some of McDermott's in-game decisions, but I pay a lot of attention to what players say - and don't say - about their coaches. I think, to some extent, you can read between the lines and start to understand what players think about their coaches and how well they prep them for the season during preseason and for individual games during the season. Current Bills players are, by and large, well-coached, well-prepared, and well-motivated. I think it was Orlovsky who said last year that the Bills and Lions had the best cultures in the NFL. Bills players know what they're doing, play hard, play together, and play for each other. It's a better coached team than any drought-era squad. And then there's Josh. (P.S. The Hondo in SWAT was probably the source and inspiration of my old high school nickname).

Thanks for letting us know about this show. Which episode has the Bills-Lions game?

Alpha, I don't usually like lengthy posts, but that was a great story. Thanks for sharing. I never met Josh but at a restaurant in California a couple of years ago, I met a couple who were from the Firebaugh area who went to school with Josh's mom and knew the entire family. Their stories were consistent with what you said: they're "good people." The couple heaped compliment after compliment on Josh and his mom.

I think the All-Drought team is better at a lot of position groups, but the current team would win for two reasons: HC and, mostly, QB. Btw, I personally think of Kyle, Tyrod, and Moulds as drought players even if they did get to taste the playoffs at the beginning or end of their Bills careers.

This is so good to see. I've been complaining for what felt like generations about the OL. For a while, I couldn't understand why Beane drafted a unicorn QB with little attempt to hire an adequate bodyguard to protect him. Well, little by little, Beane's built up a good one.

While you might be right, I hope not. Hamlin is a great story and a serviceable safety who knows the system and seems rarely to blow his assignments. But I'm hoping one of the other safeties proves to be better than him. Edit: I just saw Don Otreply's post and realized I just parroted what he had already said. I guess great minds do think alike. 😄

I'm with Special K: Elijah Moore and Cole Bishop. I think Moore fills an important niche and will be one of our top 2 or 3 leading receivers. I'm not confident Bishop will be a stud, but I do think he'll crack the starting lineup this year. And I'll mention a position group: DL. They've been mediocre for a while. While I'm not predicting great things from them this year, I do think greatness (or, at least, very goodness) is a possibility.

I'm not sure his post is entirely accurate. For example, was he really 14th string? We would have needed 42 wideouts in camp to man 14 strings. If he exaggerated on that point, maybe he did on some others too? Though it was still good to read the positive comments and sense the growth in maturity.

This was in the 1981 Excalibur movie. Stirring!

I lot of fans agree that the Bills skill position groups (minus QB) deserve to be ranked in the 20s. I wonder if these are the same folks who want to fire McD for not getting to the SB despite our shortcomings at WR, TE, and RB (and elsewhere). And if they're the same people who don't want to fire Beane despite some of the challenges he's had with roster-building. I'm not pointing fingers or blaming anyone. Just curious. Despite some poor decisions over the years, I personally find it hard to blame McD for not winning us a Lombardi when he's never been given a Lombardi caliber roster.

I agree, Shaw. The Bills have built something that's difficult to do: a team that's in the hunt perennially. I appreciate that. Still, when I'm lying on my deathbed many years from now (or maybe tomorrow, who knows?), I don't want to think of the 1990s and 2020s as the two periods in my long fandom that we had a good team that was never quite good enough. But with Beane, McD, and Josh, I think we'll be contenders for years to come so I still light incense to the Gods of the Gridiron in a hopeful spirit. Maybe this is finally the year...