Livinginthepast

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!!

Seriously ?!!??!! While McDermott might yet prove to be a conservative careful coach, he hasn't been here long nor disgraced himself with woosiness like Jauron did. Jauron was the absolute worst and I will never EVER forgive him for laying down to NE in that game where the Bills gave up 56 points and NE kept going for 2. All we saw from Jauron was the 1000yd death stare of fear.

You would think that NFL coaches know what they are doing. So starting and playing TT the whole game yesterday was because they "really felt" like he was their best option to win. However after seeing years of boneheaded in game decisions by NFL coaches, here and around the league, I can honestly say that I think many coaches are just too dumb, stubborn or scared to make a change at QB until it is much too late. I think if McDermott puts in Peterman even for a series yesterday in the 2nd half it changes the whole game plan for Carolina. It throws them off balance and it potentially gives the Bills a chance to break out of the offensive "straightjacket" they were in. Of course he didn't and Dennison and TT combine for one of most boring vanilla Offensive performances I have ever seen from the Bills.

I'm a little concerned that after 2 games the Offense is so boring, vanilla and sputtering!! I sometimes watch youtube highlights of the Kelly teams of the 90s and have a pleasant nostalgia trip. Great playcalling and great execution but also so inventive and entertaining. Why are all those great plays from that era like reverses, options , flea flickers, long bombs etc been relegated to the gadget plays bin? Do we not have the talent and personnel to actually pull them off? The current check down , dink and dunk is just awful to watch. Dennison seems to be yet another Bills Offensive coordinator that is afraid to challenge his QB with complicated plays.

Earlier in the game the side judge? was injured. Did he come back in the 2nd half? Perhaps that was his call to make and he wasn't there. Or maybe the correct official was there and just blew it. I was kind of surprised that when an official goes down there are no subs??

Full on facemask! The defender probably wouldn't have brought McCoy down had he not had a hand on the facemask. The refs didn't see it. Our usual "B" team of commentators didn't even notice it. I erupted with my usual indignant outrage at my TV, somehow the refs didn't hear me!

We saw it again today. They hang in there in big games. The D plays way over their heads, the Offense is mediocre but it has the chance to win on one drive if they're clutch. The Offense put together a decent drive and then there's the inevitable bad refereeing decision which is a gut punch and we don't recover. Today on the last drive there were 2 bad calls that really hurt us. The first was the non call on McCoy's facemask. It was absolutely flagrant and obvious and YET somehow the doddering refs don't see it. That would have put us first down on the Carolina 25 yard line with 1min left. Huge no call which really helped the Panthers. Then the dagger. 2 plays later the very iffy PI call that would have been a Bills 1st down on the 22 with about 53 seconds left. Once again we get hurt by bogus penalties, iffy penalties and Non calls. A good team gets past that and does what it takes to win the game but somehow for close to 2 decades we have continuously had teams that just cannot get off the mat when they experience the inevitable bad call gut punch. Is it lack of character? Lack of leadership at QB or is it just lack of skill and talent?? I know one thing to win in this league you must be able to rise above the bad officiating, because it only seems to be getting worse!!

A completly chincy call. The defender fell down which made it seem worse but the contact happened because the defender gets in the way of the Bill's reciver and yes it made things much more difficult on that last drive.

I thought the exact same thing! The FG was one of the weirdest I have seen in any area of football ever. It looked normal and then looked like it was blasted by a microburst of wind that blew it sideways. 37 years of watching the Bills at home in person or on TV and I don't remember a kick behaving like that even with some of the bizarre wind conditions that happen there

Shouldnt they have done this termination long before the draft? and all their scouts too? shaking head at the time not so much the decision,.

How about Clint Howard?

A scumbag in every sense of the word. All that talent, on a great team, incredibly rich and he murders someone over a spilled drink? My only hope is that his organs were at least harvested for somebody who deserves to live and not wasted. At least something positive can come out of this degenerate.

Brady will retire then run for president for the GOP. Once elected , He will make an executive order that the Bills will never make the playoffs ever again.

Did I hear that stat right? Pats ran 96 plays on offense and not one holding call. I'm not a fix/conspiracy guy, I think the Pats won fair and square last night. The refs were actually decent overall but not 1 holding call? Is that some sort of record? Is the Pats Oline that good that they dont hold or great at concealing it? Has this ever happened before?

I have been watching the NFL for almost 40 years. I have seen so many great QBs get into their mid 30s but by 38 or 39 they are completely worn out. Brady is astounding for his age. Some of his passes last night were unbelievable. Only a catastrophic injury or series of concussions will derail him from playing 5 more years! Of course its the Bills luck that he was drafted by the Pats.

This game does nothing to change the status of the Bills comeback vs the Oilers. The Bills game is still the greatest comeback ever. They were more pts down than NE with a backup QB not the greatest QB ever. Maybe this SB ranks as #2 but no way does it eclipse what the Bills did in that game vs the Oilers.

A fellow Bills fan said this exact scenario to me today. BUT it aint gonna happen. Brady still looks awesome out there, why not break every record for excellence out there so nobody will EVER catch you or be on par with you. Brady could play 5 more years!

You have to think that the OC is telling him to slow it down. If not why not?

I noticed that too on a couple of plays!! WTF!! who is advising Ryan at that point!!!

Whats most maddening about this data is that it shows how fine the margins are in this league between losers and playoff teams. In many of the Bills games in the past 3 years they have had chances to win games and blown the opportunities because of missed tackles, bad throws, drops etc. There have also been many moments where incompetent coaching has cost them. Bad play calls, burning timeouts, failure to challenge bad ref calls or challenging good calls (because you are listening to a spiritual adviser) . I like love to see how many games the Bills would have won with a HC who is a shrewd game manager. Both Rex and Marrone were pretty awful at this. In any case its part of the cruel nature of being a Bills fan.

Big deal. Its not like the Pats dont know they are Aholes! They wear that with pride. Now go walk the walk Steelers and punch them in the mouth!! Judging from Saturday, they are right for the picking. But you cannot do it with FGS, get in the endzone!!

Yes its great to have elite QBs, but as I mentioned on another post yesterday, TRENT DILFER won a SB!!! If that isnt proof that its possible without one then I dont know what is. You put TT in at QB supported by the Texans D and they win that game vs the Pats.

This game was a perfect opportunity for Texans coaches to employ a "Trent Dilfer" strategy. Often a really good defensive unit puts you in a position to defeat a superb offensive unit. All an elite D needs from their offense is a game manager at QB. Baltimore winning the SB with Dilfer (a mediocre if not terrible QB) was the best example. Don't throw INTS, run the ball, only make sure high % throws. Peyton Manning did this last year in the AFC final and the SB. Instead the Texans foolishly trusted Osweiler to win them the game when they had enough evidence to the contrary all season that he probably couldn't do that. The Texans defense played a great game. About the only thing they failed to do was to convert the turnovers directly into points themselves. Osweiler only converted one of the turnovers into a TD and the FGS were just not enough. If TT was QB for Houston they would have won that game. The Pats get lucky again!