hondo in seattle

Even Quinn looks good

Continuity is good when you're continuing excellence. Continuous misery isn't a good thing.

So far in nearly 1.5 games, the offense has produce 2 FGs. And tonight the defensive secondary looks awfully porous. And Orton really doesn't need his pads. He's not getting hit.

Fitz 5 of 11 for 38 yards Orton 8 of 11 for 107 yards For some reason, we're throwing about twice as often as we're running even though so far we're averaging 5 yards per carry.

Orton looks better than Fitz

CJ's fiesty.... doesn't want to go down

The first offensive drive looked good until the 3 consecutive incompletes into the red zone.

Fake Punt!

The Bills were not fun to watch under DJ so I guess this is progress.

Despite the Wildcat supposedly going out of style, I expect to see a lot of Brad Smith this year. When he comes on the field, the defense won't know what to expect. Smith might be under center, or in the Pistol, or in the Shotgun. He might run (with the advantage of having 10 blockers in front of him instead of the typical 9) or pass or handoff. The Bills could keep Fitz in the game and line Smith up as a WR - or as the QB with Fitz lined up wide. The Wildcat has limitations. First, when the RB is playing the QB spot, the secondary usually cheats up because they become less concerned about the pass. But Smith was a college QB and can get the ball downfield. Another limitation is that to keep the element of surprise, teams will often huddle with their normal personnel and then line up in the wildcat with the QB out wide as a WR. The problem there is that the offense won't normally run or pass to the side of their QB. They want to keep him out of traffic so he doesn't get hurt. But the Bills don't necessarily have to do this. They can just take Fitz out of the game and make Smith the QB. With Smith in, they can run or pass in any direction. I expect to see a lot from the Bills wildcat in the season opener. The idea is to get other defenses to respect and prepare for it. Obviously, the more time defenses worry about all our wildcat permutations and combinations, the less they prepare themselves for our base offense. So the Bills want other teams to know something about our wildcat options.

No NFL talent evaluators bat a thousand. Whether Nix is right or not about Newton or anyone else he liked but didn't draft doesn't mean much. I really hope he's right about the guys we did draft. I heard Ron Wolf (who got the Pack to the SB twice) say that his draft strategy was to hopefully get one Pro Bowl guy out of each draft. If the 1st rounder was a bust but the 4th rounder got invited to Hawaii, it was a good draft. Two Pro Bowlers would make it a great draft. Wolf says he wasn't interested much in role players. You'll find those guys either in the draft or free agency. You need some but they don't make you a winner. You need at least one impact player out of every draft. Did we get one last year? This year?

Am I old and senile with a fading memory? Or did Bell do reasonably well in pass protection last year?

Merriman was there. He says he didn't have steroids. Moran was not there. He says he did. Who knows, Moran may be right. But right now I have to go with Merriman. And shame on Moran for publishing a one-source article (a contravention of journalistic standards)! He should have worked harder to try to prove his information. Failing that, this should have never been published.

I think it's unfair to insinuate that Wilson is a racist. James Harris, who you mention, was the first black QB to begin an AFL or NFL season as the starting QB. Wilson was okay with a black QB before anyone else. Who knows if the report that Ralph didn't want Vick is true. But, if true, maybe Wilson just likes dogs. Maybe Wilson doesn't like felons. Maybe, like many people before last season, Ralph didn't think Vick was accurate enough to be a top flight NFL QB. Other than Vick, when have you heard that Wilson was against black QBs?

I had come to the same conclusion. Fitz isn't the best deep ball guy. Our line isn't great at pass protection and Fitz probably won't take a lot of 7 steps drops this season. And Lee isn't good underneath. If Lee had stayed with the Bills, I'm not sure how much he would have been on the field. He just doesn't fit what Gailey wants to do nor what the Bills have the ability to do. Evans might have still started - not sure - but he would have seen his playing time reduced. That said, I think there is a problem about opponents respecting our deep threat, regardless of how Buddy responded to the question. I'm glad Buddy is confident but Stevie isn't as fast as Lee. We do have a couple WRs faster than Stevie but they haven't proven yet that they can actually get open deep and make the catch on game day. Lee was a guy who once caught two 80 yard bombs in the same half. Teams respected Lee and often doubled him because they didn't want that to happen to them. It will be interesting to see how Gailey plans to stretch the field vertically to open up the run and short-passing games.

Mrags, great live on-the-spot reporting!

Thanks for the link. Good stuff. Wonder if the kid has ADD? Whatever the issue, I hope he can resolve the consistency/concentration problem because he seems to have a huge upside.

I'm not sure why we think we only now figured this out? I don't think his every thought, his every conversation, ends up in the press.

I don't actually care where the gurus rate us in preseason power polls. I guess I can't criticize anyone ranking us #32. We were horrible last year and haven't made any really major additions outside the draft. I still think Prisco is wrong but only wins will prove the point. Let's hope we get some.

I live in Seattle and only know what I read so let me ask those of you who have been to camp: Gailey says Rhinehart has earned the right to practice with the ones (thanks Punch for the link). What are those of you going to Pittsford see? If Rhinehart earned the right to practice with the ones, why not on the right side? Is Levitre playing badly? Does Rhinehart actually look good?

Ganesh, as the Elephant-head god of India and a great deva of intellect and wisdom, it's hard to argue with you. And, in any case, I also think that there are many if's this season - too many for comfort. But I can't completely agree with you about Prisco. I'm sure Prisco knows far more about football than me and most of us on this board. But he does NOT know more about the Bills than many of us. It's hard to be an expert on 32 clubs. As a team that hasn't been to the playoffs since Alexander the Great crossed the Hydaspes River (staying the the Indian subcontinent allusions), the Bills just don't get studied by the national media as much as some other teams. In fact, I think those of us coming to Two Bills Drive and The Stadium Wall every day know the Bills far better than Prisco. I doubt if Prisco is as informed as we are of the state of Merriman's health, how Fitz's arm has looked, the quality of the receiving corps, the importance of adding Wannstedt, the progress of guys like Troupe and Carrington, and so on. Posters on this site would probably rate the Bills anywhere from #1 (the guy who keeps predicting 16-0) to #32. I think, though, if you took an average of all those rankings, you'd get a more accurate prediction of the Bills season than you could get from Prisco. It's self-evident: the community of Bills fans knows the Bills better than Prisco.

But they closed out the season 4-4. Why would you use the first half of 2010 to project 2011? Don't you think the second half of the 2010 season - when players were beginning to acclimate to new offensive and defensive schemes - would better predict this season's performance? And it's not the same lineup... at least not on defense. The D looks to me to have a better front 7.

I saw the biggest bust list too. Over the years, I've tended to blame mostly the coaching staff for the Bills dismal performance. But maybe our coaches were better than I give credit for. Maybe the FO deserves most of the blame. We've had more than our share of 1st round busts.

I think this is an interesting idea... for 2012. Jasper has so much technique to learn at DT, I don't the coaching staff would want to waste precious time teaching him to block, even for one play. He really needs to stick to his #1 job right now. At least, that's my humble opinion. But I do see the appeal of having of 400lb Mount Jasper crashing into the line opening a hole for someone.

I think Nix/Gailey saw many weakness on this team. We needed playmakers, D Linemen, O Linemen, maybe a QB, etc. They went with Spiller and Dareus, for example, because the way the draft played out. I don't think they intentionally neglected the O line. I think they merely combined the 'best-player-available' approach with the 'player-most-needed' approach on draft weekend. Given how the drafts went down, it would have been nice, however, to see them pursue O Linemen more aggressively in free agency.