Livinginthepast

so what changed this year?

Watching the Saints O Line destroy us today got me thinking. Why have we not invested in a quality Oline to go with arguably our best RB in 2 decades? The pass protection for TT is decent but this current line cannot seem to open any holes for McCoy. It seems that he earns every yard he gets because he makes his own space out there. Watching Tolbert or anyone else run the ball with this line is painful. They go nowhere fast. I also wonder if this O line's pass protection abilities are also just an illusion because TT is able to avoid sacks with his scrambling. This combined with some ill timed holding penalties have killed us this year on offense. Or is this all down to Denison's lack of creativity in his run blocking schemes?

It was always 3 things with Dareus that doomed him, 1. He was hugely overpaid 2. He wasn't a great passrusher 3. He had so many off the field discipline issues. I don't think anyone can argue that Dareus wasn't great as a run stopper but Whaley paid him like he was Bruce Smith sacking Qbs at will. If he wasn't given that stupid money contract he might still be here stuffing the run.

Actually it reminded me of watching high school football when your school team is filled with freshman and they play a team stacked with guys who hit puberty when they were 9. It was truly Men vs Boys out there. we were stomped on and beat up out there.

TT has been horrible in all 4 losses, even with the terrible protection. It started on the 1st drive and just got worse. He was missing guys all day, overthrowing and his checkdowns were always bad choices. Put Peterman in because we have seen TT's best and with our horrendous D, theres no way we are making the playoffs with TT there.

By sheer coincidence , the Saints game that you mentioned was my first Bills game that I ever attended. The Bills fended off a 4th q drive by the Saints and won it. It was mindblowing being a 15 year old and experiencing tail gating and the crowd energy. Fond memories of my late father and a busload of his fellow engineers drinking themselves silly and then demanding that the charter bus driver pull over at the side of the QEW near Fort Erie for a "piss break!!". As for your point, I hope its not the 83 Bills team as they faded badly. I think this Bills squad is better coached (Stephenson was a mediocre replacement for Knox) but the injuries this year may tell the tale.

The should have the 2 teams that have a bye the previous week play the Thursday night game. Cant be too hard to figure that out. That way there are no excuses. Also please kill the London games they are almost but not quite as bad as the Bills in Toronto series!!

The Bills last night looked like my kids after they have eaten too much halloween candy. They looked sluggish, ill tempered, overly emotional and did boneheaded things. The game may prove to be a blip but as others have mentioned, we have seen this particular movie before and games like this tend to derail the train to the playoffs for the Bills, time and time again. They need to really regroup and get this out of their heads. Get Benjamin into the offense as fast as possible and forget about this embarrassment.

McD isnt the type of coach to put up with this kind of illdiscipline. Hughes will be gone if he does this again. The process may have started already after last night. It was a really stupid penalty.

This was a "statement game" for the Falcons for all the wrong reasons. They have looked pretty mediocre to terrible this year and this perfomance just cements the apparent decline from last year. Sure losing to the champs is pretty common, losing to Brady is pretty common, but they choked away an easy victory in the SB. If they had any mental toughness they would have bounced back. But the Pats are in their heads after the SB and Falcons played scared and stupid. Some of those playcalls last night were laughable and showed no confidence at all. They have definitely lost their Mojo. As for the Pats, they continue to be gifted by their opposition with game changing mistakes. Whether its missed FGs, stupid penalties or like last night (and previous games) mystifying opposing coaching decisions that help them. They look beatable. We have to not play stupid vs them, is that possible?

Jets "fumble"= Typical NFL. Create a stupid rule which defies logic and then try desperately to back up your inept officials when they blow yet another call. Its just like the catch rule or the tuck rule. Just plain stupid. In this case though the officials had the call right initially.At the very least I would have expected the officials original call of a TD to stand unless the evidence of a fumble was irrefutable. Looking at the replay again it just reinforces the fact that the Jets player bobbles the ball but regains possession BEFORE hitting the pylon. Which should be an INSTANT TD. An absolutely bogus call that just reinforces the conspiracy theory that the Pats have the officials bought and paid for. As for the Roger's hit. It was legal under the NFL rules. But once again the NFL drops the ball. If they seriously want to protect QBS then don't allow any hits after the ball is out. If momentum carries you into the QB and the ball is not there then = 15 yd penalty for late hit. No exceptions. The one step hit after the ball is out may have been an acceptable idea in the 70s and 80s when the average player was probably 50 to 100lbs lighter but not now when you have a 300lb behemoth bearing down on the QB who has incredible speed. No QB stands a chance when one of these guys pile drives him into the turf.

Hell we threw a dildo on the field. Much more dangerous in SO many ways!!!

That was the issue with this game. With the injuries Tyrod lost his targets to throw to but for some unknown reason did not want to run it himself. I think he was too banged up from all the late hits he was taking from the Bengals D. In any case he was completely neutralized and Dennison did not adjust the game plan on the fly.

I saw this as well. Tate didnt really react. Nobody noticed it on the broadcast. Really classy Bengals fans!

I think its great we are 3-2 but losing today and even the Panther's game are why we havent made the playoffs in 17 years. Both games were there for the taking if we had a QB and Offense that could rise to the occasion. I can understand the conditions were poor but Tyrod taking that sack and making that terrible INT pass were completely inexcusable. In Tyrod's defense , He must have been banged up having been hit and shoved and pounded on the entire game AFTER the play was over. The Bengals knew what they were doing following through after the play and it was dirty. The clueless morons in the stripes finally called a late hit after about the 4th or 5th time the Bengals did that and by that stage the damage was done. Also with Clay gone, the offense became very limited. Shady just couldn't get it done. I really hope this loss is not the difference between making the playoffs and missing out.

Wow what a joke of a game. The Pats once again get all the lucky breaks. Is it not enough that they won their last 2 SBs because of luck and poor coaching decisions by their opposition? But the luck just keeps on coming. Folk missing those FG's and then the bonehead TB coach thinking that somehow that Folk is in the right mindset for a good onside kick? Which of course was predictably terrible. All I could think of was that Folk was the kicker who BEAT US on Monday night with the Cowboys with a clutch FG and great onside kick. But NOOOOO the Pats get him at his cratering of his skill level because luck follows them everywhere. So sick of this of this crap.

We are on a nice run here but injuries like Matthews could derail us very quickly. The key to winning in this league is depth. We need to fill Matthews position asap. Bringing in a vet for a short term rental? Damn you Boldin why did you retire!!

What makes this hit all the more dirty was that it was unnecessary to hit the player that hard because he was already in the process of being tackled. He was largely defenseless and couldn't brace himself for impact. Trevathan didn't have to do that an led with his head. I think he should definitely be suspended and fined!

Splitting hairs to say that that criticizing the fan base pissed a lot of people off and set him on a bad course here? His clarification of his "losers" comment did nothing to dispel the idea in many people's minds that he was a thin skinned whiner. Whether it was justified or not. The reality was that left a bad taste in a lot people's mouths about Sammy and intensified Bills fans skepticism that he was a bad choice in the draft. Its not grasping at anything to make that observation. Its simply a fact that Sammy doing that was a bad move on his part. He could have overcome it had he stayed healthy and wracked up production but that wasn't the case. Instead he brought way more pressure on himself by making the "losers" comment.

No he lashed out at the people criticizing him in general and once he saw the backlash, he "clarified" his statement to specific fans. Read the link below in case you don't remember. In any case criticizing the fans wasn't the big issue, Being injury prone and not having production when he was healthy obviously was. http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/13991602/buffalo-bills-wr-sammy-watkins-says-fans-bash-athletes-injuries-losers

He called out the fans as "Losers" in his 2nd year. I never said he did it "regularly" . But criticizing the fans impatience with his constant injuries was too much for me at that time. Then Sammy proves his critics RIGHT by constantly being injured after that. At least the other players you mentioned earned the right to be a dbag now and then with their production. Sammy didn't come close.

While Im glad that Sammy is doing well on the west coast, Im getting a little sick of all the people talking like we traded a potential HOFer because we were stupid. Sammy criticized the fans, was injured often and didnt show much of the game breaking ability of others in his draft class while he was here. Yes he had Qbs that didnt get him the ball but how many times did he not do much with a pass when he actually did catch it? I wish him all the best but lets move on. The Bills had real reasons , actually good reasons for punting this guy. It seems that he was never going to fulfill his potential HERE.

I like Howard and Jeremy. I think Howard though should move on from his "back in my day" old man takes. I used to enjoy Jeremy vs Sully but I havent heard Sully on WGR in a few years? Does he refuse to come on or is he banned? As for Murphy, he is way too company line for me.

Poor amatuerish production has been the norm for most of the networks for the past 20 years. More teams in the NFL means more games and spreading the TV talent in all areas out. One thing is almost for certain, with the Bills as irrelevant as they are now we always get the B team commentators, camera people and producers. The McCoy play where he got facemasked was a HUGE non call. It was a blatant facemask and should have been called. It hugely affected the outcome of the game. YET the clueless commentators did not mention it and somehow the guys in the TV production van didn't spot it either to show us a closeup replay or even mention to the commentators to look at. I find that watching football on a big flatscreen in HD is awesome. The images have never looked better but the way the game is covered even with all the new camera angles, pales in comparison to the production values of the 80s and 90s. The commentators are shills for the NFL and are afraid to make critical comments of the coaches, players and officials even when they do incredibly stupid stuff or make bad calls.

The one constant of the last 20 years as the NFL has expanded has been a steady deterioration of officiating. Its only going to get worse. Replay should be able to correct the mistakes like yesterday but not the way the NFL does it. The PI call was crap. The obvious facemask and non call was mystifying because it was so blatant. When the refs are this clueless you need to have a coach's challenge on penalties. If McDermott could have thrown a challenge flag and had them review the non call, they would have had to give the Panthers a 15 penalty and we would have been sitting pretty at the 25 with a minute left. Instead we get shafted...yet again!!