Grimace

I read the title and thought he quit his job. Years of trying to ignoring his articles and i still fall for click bait.

He slowed down at the end and still looked fast.

Wooooooooooo!

If you're trying to get an app to work, TuneIn is working for me.

I'm listening to John Murphy and the audio keeps getting quieter. The ads are blaringly loud, but the game is hard to hear. Loving this game so far.

Listening to the game on my honeymoon right now. Couldn't find any other Bills fans in Jamaica, so it's just me and my wife. Thank you internet. Something with a lot of rum in it.

Offense vs defense understanding might be part of this, but a simpler explanation is the Peter principle. A head coach needs to manage and delegate more than an a coordinator. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

It's a matter of "why" vs. "how". To defend something you need to know why it works and know how to defend it, not how to do it. A baseball hitter can watch a lot of tape on a pitcher to know why they are effective and how to hit them, but they don't need to know how to pitch.

Sounds like you need a new car.

I know enough about trademarks and copyrights to know that I don't know anything about trademarks and copyrights. Having said that, if the Houston Oilers move to Tennessee, then change their name, does that prevent a new Houston team from using the same name 3 years later?

I think its safe to say Baltimore didn't go with the Baltimore Colts again because of the Indianapolis Colts, but if the rule exists, it does seem pointless.

I like the response. He's angry about his performance, and it comes out when he gets asked the same questions after each game. If that anger goes into motivation, he'll turn it around sooner or later, whether its getting healthy or getting over the hump.

I would correct that, but I like it better that way.

Here's another take to support Spiller's statement. As far as being close to a contender, how many teams in the NFL are close to contenders? This is a league with a lot of parody as far as teams that have a shot to compete in the playoffs. Three of the last 7 Superbowl winners have been wildcards (2010 Packers, 2007 Giants, 2005 Steelers). With a team's win total coming down to a handful of key plays each year (dropped TD pass, muffed punt, missed FG, etc), the difference between an 11-5 team and an 8-8 team is as much about consistency and luck as it is about talent. The Bills of last year were 6-10. Add some consistency (what Spiller said was needed) and luck to make the key plays that turn the tides, plus more talent and depth to escalate their every-down play, and they can contend for a wildcard spot.

Week 1 9/9: Buffalo Bills at New York Jets W Week 2 9/16 Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills W Week 3 9/23: Buffalo Bills at Cleveland Browns W Week 4 9/30: New England Patriots* at Buffalo Bills W Week 5 10/07: Buffalo Bills at San Francisco 49ers L Week 6 10/14: Buffalo Bills at Arizona Cardinals W Week 7 10/21: Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills W Week 8: BYE Week 9: 11/04 Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans L Week 10: 11/11 Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots* L Week 11: 11/15 (Thurs) Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills W Week 12: 11/25 Buffalo Bills at Indianapolis Colts W Week 13: 12/02 Jacksonville Jaguars at Buffalo Bills W Week 14: 12/09 St. Louis Rams at Buffalo Bills W Week 15: 12/16 Seattle Seahawks at Buffalo Bills W Week 16: 12/23 Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins L Week 17: 12/30 New York Jets at Buffalo Bills W

I'd like to see the author listed as well, but not because of Bob Matthews. The main reason I click on Jerry Sullivan articles is because I like to guess if he wrote it based on doom and gloom titles and summaries. I'd prefer to be able to play that game without crediting him with webpage hits.

I felt bad for the players until I read that sentence.

I'm cherry picking points of contention from a series of posts. Look at the talent on this team and try to find alternate gameplan would have worked to win the game given the personnel we have. The offense is not built for deep passing or power running. The identity of our passing game is short passing. Dominant football teams force the opponent to play their game. Good defenses shut down the short passing offense because they are good defenses. The coaches put together the most viable offense they could to win the game against that defense. Saying all that, I still don't understand why Spiller didn't play more of a role later in the game on Sunday, but its hard to tell what's going on by listening to the game on the radio. This isn't college. The coach isn't the dictator in charge of recruiting players and assembling the roster. This blame falls partly on the coach, but is largely on the shoulders of the GM. "Good Coaches" are considered good coaches because they are on winning teams. A great coach might exist on a team with awful talent and is perceived as a mediocre coach due to the W/L record. Once they acquire great talent and start winning games, they have the clout to pick and choose their coaching positions to continue the trend of winning. A good coach that doesn't have the clout to pick and choose positions still has to jump at the chance to coach any NFL team, even a bad one. Your expectations perpetuate a chicken-and-the-egg situation. No coach is good until they win and therefore we must hire a good coach, and no good coach will walk into a situation where there isn't a winning atmosphere. And Belicheck didn't know Brady was better than Bledsoe until injury gave him the chance to hit the field. Coaches make personnel decisions based on a combination of what they see out of players and what they expect out of players. In the end, what happens on the field gets priority over practice prowess. Agree that the defense is putrid and the leash needs to be short for monitoring changes, but conspiracy theories work against the credibility of your point.

I heard that interview. The only thing I'd add to your comments is that Rome set up the whole interview around getting him talking and see what he'd say about the Bills. He asked twice about why he wasn't successful with the Bills, and Maybin adamantly answered that he worked as hard as he could. It wasn't fun to listen to an interview about how the Jets can utilize talent the Bills can't, but he answered it respectfully.

I don't think Ware is a dirty player. As previously mentioned, he didn't kill Fitz on the first unblocked sack, and he helped him up immediately after the penalized hit (which looked like he hit him by accident and wanted to make it up). Hell - he was going so fast after blowing up Levitre on every passing play it was probably tough to slow down. Incidental contact happens. That said, the penalty and the fine are still appropriate. A lack of bad intentions don't change actions.

The fact that college football is the closest thing we have to minor league football does more to highlight the problems with college football than problems with the NFL. If this type of league were created, it would take away from the attention that college football gets because of players coming out of college early to play in a D-league. The talent in college football would drop, meaning a corrupt system with significant power would get less money and less power. The potential for this middle level sport to be successful can't be fully realized until the NCAA does its job and makes college football a less welcoming place for kids who don't care about academics and want to get paid.

This sounds like why we don't throw it. If the run is there for the first down, take it. Mix it up when linebackers stops respecting the pass and move up to the line.

My issue with Sullivan isn't his doom-and-gloom demeanor. Its that he writes opinion columns about how the sky is falling which fall under the guise of articles describing the state of the team. The justification he gives is debatable at best, but usually pretty weak. Other Bills reporters like Tim Graham and John Wawrow do research and write articles to report about the team. Sometimes their articles interpret the facts they report in a particular direction to make a point, but there is some substance to what is said. Take his last whinefest about Merriman for example. Consider this in context. Nix used cap space to take a gamble that a free agent who was a defensive MVP a few years ago and is still under 30 years old, but has had injury issues in recent years. His contract aside (IMO, your salary should be what you can negotiate, and its up to the GM to put together the best team possible by balancing salaries and negotiations), there was no direct compromise to other talent in bringing him in. No draft picks were burned, and no players traded. If he wrote a narrative about how we had gambled the immediate future of our defense on risky but potentially rewarding veterans with a history of success but recent injuries, and that this demonstrates the poor current state of affairs regarding talent in the Bills' locker room, I could see it as a negative but well presented article. What he has written strikes me as a more literate version of the maniacal Cleveland Indians fan in Major League who continues to yell one-sided opinions without considering any of the facts that are laid in front of him.

I recall years of football analysis showing that blitzing Vick leads to massive runs, and that teams were neutralizing him by running 1 or 2 spies at the linebacker spot. Has he forgotten how to evade blitzers and make huge gains down the field? He seems to be taking a beating lately, but has that come from blitzes or 4-man pressure with good coverage?

When we beat the Pats*, I'm going to take the next day off from work to recover from the celebration. However, the team I see as the most competitive and disliked opponent in the last decade would have to be the Jets. Both teams have gone through ups and downs with a good chance of either outcome on Sunday. At the same time, the Jets have been far more annoying than the Fish. If we could win a few games, I'd love to say the Pats*, but until they stop looking at the Bills as 2 easy wins each year, its the Jets.