Dorkington

I'm mostly pretty happy with the game. As a fan, it's frustrating that some of the hits are being flagged, but I think they are for good reason. I wish coaches and players emphasized wrapping players up more vs trying to concuss/break limbs. I think my only big beef is allowing for more things to be reviewed, while maintaining the same number of reviews a coach is allowed. If something is called an illegal hit of some sort in a bang-bang play, that should be reviewable. I'm not a big fan of expanding to markets overseas, I think it puts an unfair burden on the teams involved. But I understand why they are doing it (gotta always expand business, afterall). I'd also like to see exclusive deals in video games and sunday ticket come to an end.

IMHO, this year is drastically different than previous improvements. Established and successful head coach (other than how he went out on the Jets), established and successful OC, we didn't lose any probowl level players, but we did pick up a couple probowl level players. It's hard to argue that we didn't improve over the offseason, and we have minimal weaknesses heading into the draft. The only two reasons we don't get respect are uncertainty at QB, and a recent history of failure. You're misreading what NFL Nation prediction is... Rodak's (and mine) methodology for this is taking the prediction of every opposing writer for each game. It gives a general idea of what the collective thinks of your team... in this case, they have little respect for the Bills, and a boatload of respect for the Patriots. Outside of that, it doesn't mean too much.

A. It's very possible that the FO thinks EJ could go 10/11 wins. But believing and having a statistical certainty are two different things. B. Even if EJ *does* have what it takes to go 10/11 wins, you need someone better than Tuel as your backup, imo Veterans are better to have for backing up young players, and someone like Cassel/Orton are the best to do it, in case said young QB doesn't pan out, or gets injured.

Wait.... Mort has us at 5-11? Link?

It'd save us negative ~$3million though!

Definitely missed on a couple picks, and FA pickups, but he was a big part in changing the culture of the roster imo... Whaley has continued and improved upon it, so far. Still, until we get a QB, I doubt any Bills GM will get much in the way of real credit.

If he's responsible for killing an American citizen, why isn't he in jail? Anyone else "accidentally" killing someone, would see a punishment.

He definitely won us a couple games. So let's go with Ebron + the 15th pick. Ebron was going to be the pick, it's not anyone being cynical, it's who we were going to take if not for the trade.

This happens to most teams most years, named "cap casualties" in the off/pre season. I'd hate to lose FredEx, or McKelvin, but if it means it helps us win more games for a long period of time, then it's a sacrifice I'm willing to deal with.

Hopefully whatever Lee is teaching him, goes with what DeBerg was teaching him, otherwise it's a lot of time wasted... EJ needs repetition to gain the muscle memory.

Flutie would put us over the top, even if he wasn't a perfect QB by any stretch.

If we can come out of the first three with a 2-1 record, I'll be pretty optimistic for the season (barring injuries).

If EJ gels, I think we could get up to 11 wins. If he doesn't, and we have Cassell, I'm thinking he can game manage us to 9 or 10 wins. Either way, we have a strong team, and should be in the playoff hunt.

What a "coincidence"

I was under the impression that our starting front seven is: OLB/DE - Hughes DT - Dareus DT - K Williams DE - M Williams OLB - Lawson ILB - Brown LB - Bradham We need some depth, for sure, but I think we're pretty well set, especially if we happen to use a 2nd or 3rd on a guy who can step in and provide valuable playing time.

And yet we're going to finish 5-11, man, Rex destroyed this team.

At the very least it generally shows you what the opponent's fans/writers think of your team. Everyone thinks the Bills suck, basically. Meanwhile, the Pats are 13-3 (14-2 if they don't rest their starters during week 17).

Curious to see if any team actually has a great record with "NFL Nation" predictions... you have the opponent's 'homer' reporter predicting the score of every game.... Lets see what the Pats are predicted to do with this method.... (hold please) Edit: Looks like my suspicion was totally incorrect! NFL Nation predicts the Pats to be 13-3, while their own "homer" writer predicts them to be 11-5. Here is the "NFL Nation" prediction:

2nd season has been picked up by Netflix, no specific date other than "2016"

Yeah just saw that. I guess that shows how much respect we gain around the league from people who don't specifically follow the Bills.

So, we "improve" on paper, get a better coach... and we lose 4 more games than last year. What?

Yeah, but that's "cool". I honestly have no logical explanation, since I didn't know Jax, etc are hosting primetime games. I just assumed it's because we are generally seen as a "loser" franchise since we've been unsuccessful for so long. I know we got all sorts of coverage during the "golden years", I'm sure it'll happen again (along with premium games) if we get back to the playoffs/superbowl multiple years in a row.

The NFL would rather TV viewers be shown the Patriots fans cheering, than the drunk shirtless dead in a ditch Bills fans?

Jacksonville is hosting a primetime game? Well yeah that throws it out. The Raiders and Jets probably pull better ratings, though. Not sure about the Browns. But with Manziel, the NFL probably favors them right now too, for ratings purposes.

Much like when we complain about bad media predictions... we have to earn respect. If we start winning, we'll get said home primetime games. It's not exactly a mystery. Buffalo is a small market team, and the team with the longest playoff drought. We're not exactly a big ticket right now.