ThurmasThoman

when you're 8 years old, you have no conceptual understanding of what "alcohol" is. if he sees people puking, he will think it's because they have the flu. every swear word that is said there, he has heard a million times at school. he will remember the game fondly because he is with his dad, spending a day together, doing something his father loves--it is a bonding experience. to him, there will be 80,000 other people that are also having a great time. screaming, laughing, shouting, and yes even *gasp* saying the "f word." try to not be the one person there out of 80,000 that is NOT having a good time, because you're worried your fragile son is being corrupted. he will be 20-something some day too, going to bills games, getting black out drunk, and saying inappropriate things about people from st. louis. i hate to break it to you puritans, but it IS a party scene. thats why the NFL is so popular. the games are an event. its no different at ralph wilson stadium than at any other stadium in america. in fact, its no different than at any other place where young people gather and alcohol is consumed in mass amounts. thats every house party, frat party, college stadium, pro stadium, restaurant open past 11pm, railroad track, little league baseball field after 10pm, dorm room, or just a back seat of a car in an empty parking lot. guess what - people drink, and complain loudly/yell about things they dont like-such as opposing teams. for instance, in here, we have 9 pages of presumably sober people, yelling about how much they hate the drunks at ralph wilson stadium. i don't drink to the point of excess. hell, i hardly drink at all, unless it's water or black coffee. ergo, i am not rowdy and causing a scene, and throwing up all over myself, or yelling at little kids. of course people don't like me. people don't like you either. who are you, ghandi? nail yourself to the cross all you want, and try to legislate some type of utopia at ralph wilson stadium. OR step 1) grow up. step 2) realize that any time eighty thousand people gather in a small area, consume alcohol, and focus their attention on the ONE thing in american culture that essentially EVERY male over the age of 10 is extremely passionate about, "inappropriate" behavior is going to occur. step 3) realize that this situation is NOT unique to the parking lot of the stadium of the buffalo bills and step 4) find a different activity to bring 6 year olds to. or step 4.1) if you insist on having a "family friendly" day at the stadium, open up your pockets, buy field levels, stay away from the riff raff, and enjoy the day with the people who ARENT there to rage out of control.

do you want some sort of medal? maybe i could draw up a quick certificate for you in microsoft paint, email it over, and you can hang it on your wall? yeah buddy -- good thing you didn't bring your FIVE YEAR OLD to a game that kicks off at 8:30, goes until midnight, and 75% of the people there will be wasted. "i went to the bar last night. it was awful. couples making out, dancing. people puking in a bathroom. i overheard a gentleman say the F word. at least i didnt have my toddler with me. he would have had enough common sense to know that was WRONG." the only thing wrong with this world, is people that think theres something "wrong" with this world.

idk but that is an amazing avatar you have.

if the colts upset new england, then the patriots will be 2 games up on us. the patriots would then have a short week to go to the jets on thursday night, which if you're putting the colts game in play as a loss for them, you have to put that jets game in play as well. the patriots also have games against the texans and 49ers left. if you think the colts game is in play for the pats to lose, then the division is in play for the bills to win.

well, hopefully russ brandon has as much control of this operation as you fools claim he does, because the only logical conclusion i can draw from this article is we need to sign tebow this offseason. it would probably guarantee us at least 2 monday night football games, and we would be the lead story on sportscenter all summer.

couldnt agree more with this thread. if we beat the dolphins at home on thursday (i dont think a home team has lost the thursday night game all season--very tough for teams to go on the road,) and then the colts lose to the patriots, we can do this. but dont give up if the patriots lose to the colts. THE AFC EAST WOULD STILL BE IN PLAY. then the pats have to go to the jets on a short week then to the dolphins where they always have problems then home for the texans then home for the 49ers not saying it would happen, but you never know.

i dont know buddy, but your goal should always be to use protection when you hang out with brady. you are the typical bills fan that is terrified of the patriots. the league has moved on. that team hasnt been relevant since 07. they play in our division, so your fear is somewhat justified, but did you not watch yesterdays game? san francisco - handled us. the texans - handled us. the patriots - aided by the officials, coming off a bye, barely beat us in their place. the patriots are a lot closer to buffalo, than they are to the houstons, san frans, new yorks and chicagos of the league. if you dont believe that - watch more football.

I have gone back and forth with myself all day. Is fitz the answer? Is fitz good enough to maybe not be the answer, but at least not be the question for the next 3 years? Is fitz terrible? I have no idea. I just dont know. When he drops back to pass, I'm terrified. But as I said earlier, we've scored 28, 28, 31, and 34 in 4 losses this year. those are WINNING point totals. They absolutely are. You can hate on fitz all you want (i do, my wife does, every bills fan does,) but you score that many points, you should win AT LEAST 3 out of 4 of those games, which would put us at 6-3 and tied for first in the east. We have literally the worst defense in the league--that has to be on Wannstedt. So how about I just sum up my thoughts like this: if going into next year, we drafted a linebacker in the first round, and hired a RESPECTED defensive coordinator, i would have faith going into the season that we could win enough games to win the division. I really would. Maybe thats crazy, but consider me a kool aid drinker. OK, now in the time it took me to write this post, I flip flopped in my mind again. Is fitzpatrick able to put up points and be succesful because he is a) playing behind a dominant offensive line b) has 2 all world backs and c) plays for a head coach who loves to throw the ball around the yard. meaning, could ANY above average quarterback come in here and have success? would it not behoove us to then shoot for the stars, and try to get a true franchise qb in round 1, and just assume that a new defensive coordinator will correct a lot of the defensive woes, meaning we dont need to draft defense for the first 3 rounds?

extremely young and extremely bad. we hung 31 on them yesterday. in terms of them getting "old," i am referring to one player, and one player only. we all know who that is. it is no coincidence that every year after he hit 30, they have looked more and more vulnerable. HE is not getting any younger, and they are not going to make some amazing leap forward next year. just looking at the conference standings, you can see the conference separating-and the patriots are no longer one of the 2 best teams in the conference, like they have been for the past 10 years. the gap between us keeps closing. our last 4 games against the patriots have been good games, and we could have won all of them. finally, the gap is closing. that's all im saying. there was no catching the patriots for a decade, now its possible.

I know this is the internet, so I should never admit defeat, but a few things: I was wrong about us beating the Patriots this week, and more specifically, wrong about them being on the decline. That is a team that can put points on the scoreboard. However, I maintain that they're not getting any younger, and we're getting closer to them. Maybe that says more about the Bills than about the Patriots, but next year, we finish ahead of them. I'm not ready to say I'm wrong about us making the playoffs. The 5 seeded colts are 3 games ahead of us with 7 to go. We play Miami this week, they play the Patriots. Then, we play the Colts the following week. Following that, the Colts fly to Detroit, and we come home to play Jacksonville. 3 winnable games for us, 3 losable games for them. This season could look totally different in a few weeks, so I'll still be watching, and you should too. Finally, and what I really wanted to get to, I was wrong about Fitzpatrick. All season I was beating the drum that Thigpen should take over, or better yet, Jackson. Point blank, fitzy has been getting it done lately. We have the 32nd ranked defense in the league: In 4 of our losses this year, we scored 28, 28, 34 and 31 points. The TWENTY SEVENTH ranked defense in the league allows 27.6 points a game. Just that little of a jump, from 32nd to 27th ranked defense could result in 4 more wins. Basically, Fitz is being handicapped by how bad our defense is. The top 10 defenses in the league all allow under 21 points a game, which would get us another "win." So having a top 10 defense, with the offense we have now, would be good for % more wins, or a 8-1 record. *Disclaimer: I know there a lot of "what-ifs" in the scenario I just created, but it's for the sake of discussion. The point to all of this: Keep Gailey-he's doing just fine. Keep Fitz-he can win if our D plays better. Fire Wanny, draft linebackers, get a SOLID #2 wideout, and... I cant believe I'm about to say this... but give Fitz one more year

High-powered California political officials have been courting Carolina owner Jerry Richardson in the hopes of bringing the Panthers to Los Angeles with no luck to date, said one source familiar with the discussions. Richardson has been polite and steadfast that he is committed to Charlotte and is not moving the Panthers. The only scenario in which he would listen would be if Charlotte balked at helping him with some of the stadium renovations the Panthers have been seeking. Some of the talks between Los Angeles and Richardson occurred when the Democratic National Convention was in Charlotte, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was the chairman of the convention, planning for the Barack Obama speech held in Richardson's Bank of America Stadium. What Los Angeles officials discovered was that the Panthers are one of four NFL teams -- along with the Redskins, Patriots and Dolphins -- that own their own stadium and do not have to break any leases or go through any litigation to move. Carolina, therefore, became an easy target for Los Angeles officials but their courting of Carolina has been unsuccessful. I know "the sky is falling" crowd won't care, but that single line alone is more damning with regards to the panthers relocating to LA than ANYTHING that has EVER been written about the Bills. I'm talking facts, not op ed pieces. Some of you guys need to get over yourselves, but that's another thread entirely. Can't wait til we beat the Patriots today - f*ck most of you, go bills.

The only thing more PATHETIC than the self-loathing of Buffalo "fans" is the fear they have of the new england patriots. Just like every other aspect of popular culture, most Bills fans are about a decade behind the curve. If I made this thread about a game against the jets or the cardinals, i dont think it would be 5 pages of how crazy I am--but those are two games the patriots lost this year. as i said earlier, the only time SINCE DECEMBER OF 2010 that the Patriots have beaten a team with a winning record was last years playoff game against the ravens--that they should have lost. i repeat: the patriots have not beat a team with a winning record in 2 years. do the bills suck? yes. do we have no leadership? yes. are there a million problems with our organization? yes. is the Patriots organization on the downslope of their "dynasty"? absolutely. these facts are not mutually exclusive. THEY ARE NOT A DOMINANT TEAM. and what, in our last 3 contests against them, makes you think its IMPOSSIBLE for us to beat them? the 21 point leads we've built in the last 2, or the victory 3 games ago? it's a bad matchup for them, and now, with mario williams healthy and generating pressure on the line-the matchup becomes even less favorable. also, last time we played them, our 2 running backs were BOTH playing hurt. this wont even be an upset, were just going to WIN. why do you guys even "follow" football, if you think this is such a ridiculous long shot? better yet, if the patriots are this incredible football force from the heavens that only jesus christ himself can stop, shouldnt you be more excited about a bills season in which, halfway through, we should be 4-4, despite the fact that we've played the patriots, texans and 49ers? And just to be clear: I think that the bills can win a game against a team that is a lot closer to us than they are to elite, and build some momentum going into the second half of the schedule, which is setting up to be quite easy, and could possibly turn into a playoff run. YOU think the bills have no shot whatsoever, and anyone who thinks that is crazy, on drugs, and is trolling this message board. So, really, my question is: why even post here, or watch the games? I mean, if you think that someone who actually ENJOYS this stuff is crazy--why be a part of it? For instance, I think skiing is pretty boring, and not something I'm really into. I don't spend my free time hanging out at lodges, shouting at people walking by with skis that they're trolling the mountain. Get a life. If I was mod, I would ban IPs after the bills win on sunday.

in fact - we have NEVER won in gillete. As a man who works with statistics all day every day, i LOVE that stat. were not NEVER going to win there, right? so every year that we dont win in gillete, means the next year becomes that much more likely that we will. seems like this is a good year to get that started.

the patriots haven't won a regular season game against a team with a winning record since december 2010. they. suck. it doesnt matter if they made the super bowl last year, they got tebows broncos in round 2, and smoked by the ravens in the conference championship--yet somehow they won. in 2010, the last time they beat a team in the regular season with a winning record, they got beat handily by the jets in the playoffs. the year before THAT, they got steamrolled by the ravens in the wild card round. tom brady is every bit of 36 years old. he is slow, scared, and losing his accuracy in the pocket. you can say "THATS NOT TRUE," all you want, but i bet the only patriots game you've watched this year has been their win over us, no? they SHOULD have lost to the jets, and we COULD have beat them if cj didnt fumble that ball away. dont get so caught up in the fact that they hung 50 on us. we dominated them for a half, they dominated us for a half. whats their quality win this season? beating the RAMS?? this prediction has less to do with the faith i have in the bills (which is little,) and more to do with the fact that the patriots are a not-very good team, that people on here have been absolutely conditioned to think is unbeatable. the cardinals beat them. IN FOXBORO! the patriots could just as easily be 4-4, had they lost to the jets, like we could be 4-4, had we beat the titans. 2 VERY close games, that happened to swing in their favor, and against us, respectively. we are VERY VERY VERY close to them, as much as you dont want to believe it. i mean... the texans are by far and away better than the patriots, and its not even close. and we hung with the texans. look-all im saying is, i knew we would lose to houston - we all did. i even had a bad feeling about that tennessee game. but this patriots game? 2 healthy running backs, fitz has had 2 good games in a row (as much as it pains me to say that,) mario is healthy, our o-line is healthy. we shock the world this weekend. not fanboy optimism, just telling it like it is. we matchup well with them, and were going to do it this weekend.

Im not going to up this if we win. I just think that looking at this situation OBJECTIVELY. In our last 3 meetings against the patriots, we have won gone up 21-0 until we benched stevie and were a CJ spiller fumble away from going up 28-7 on them this year. as unlikely as it seems, as improbable as it is, as bizarre as it sounds, we play fairly well against the patriots. they are NOT the team they used to be. I live here, i listen to about 2 hours of new england sports radio a day. Brady is terrified of pressure in the pocket--mario williams is healthy. the patriots are unable to score in crunch time. they cant stop anyone in the fourth quarter. i've watched most of their games, BELIEVE ME, they suck, and will lose in the wildcard round. anyone can say "ohh well the patriots defense is 11th and were 20 something so theyre better than us." that is FALSE. The patriots have not had a defensive performance like we had against arizona, like we had against cleveland, or like we had against houston all year, or last year. take your stats and go solve a sudoku. we have the recipe to beat them THIS WEEKEND. this team was built to beat the patriots, and now its going to happen. they didnt look like a team that quit in houston. they looked like a young 9-7 team that hung with the best team in football (who was coming off their bye,) on the road, for 3 quarters. IDK what more you could expect from them--theyre not the giants, theyre the rebuilding bills. im not going to quit this board, im not going to up this thread, i dont care. but for everyone who has made plans to go do something else on sunday, try to check the score around 3:00, because i think youre going to be amazed at what you see. this has every possibility to be one of those games where people are filing out of the stadium midway through the fourth, and the cameras are panning accross new englands sidelines while theyre looking like "wtf just happened." people are so scared of the patriots on here. "brady called us b*tches omg omg omg he is king, we suck we are his bitches." we win this, were 4-5, theyre 5-4. the schedule for us the rest of the season? sugar breasts. the schedule for them? sweaty ass. keep the faith.

I know no one on here wants any optimism, but here it is: We were 1 CJ Spiller fumble away from being up 28-7 on these clowns 4 weeks ago. We were up 21-0 on them to end last season before Stevie was benched. And obviously, we won our first matchup against them last season. By all rights, we should be on a 3 game winning streak against the Patriots, and the fact that we choked away 2 games in a row to them is not discussed on here. People fear the Patriots, but in all reality, we play our best ball against them. Why? Because their defense is bad. Worse than ours, in fact. By a long shot. The common denominator in us losing to the Patriots hasnt been our ability to light up the score board, it's been our inability to stop THEM from scoring. Well, as much as everyone on here hates Wannstedt, I'm willing to give him a pass-for now. We just had an absolutely monster game on defense against the texans, on the road. Coincidently, this game came after our 100 million dollar man had a medical procedure to correct what had been ailing him all season. The fact that wannstedt is not the biggest fan of sending pressure at the qb that doesnt come from the line emphasizes the importance of the guys up front--with mario healthy, our defense is totally different. It should look a lot more like it did last week for the rest of the season. If that continues into this weeks game against new england, the patriots dont stand a chance. Feel free to give up on the season, if you want. In fact, the Patriots are an 11 point favorite, so it looks like everyone else has already given up on us. I didn't think we'd beat the texans, I didn't even think we'd beat the titans. But this game, it's going to be fun.

I gave up on our team once. It was 2004. We were 3-6, coming off a loss to the patriots. A quick glance at our schedule revealed games upcoming against boring teams like seattle, st. louis, and miami. The air had been let out of the balloon, and I could have cared less. I missed the best 6 weeks of football the Bills have played in the last 15 years. I don't care how pessimistic everyone on this board is. I live in New England -- I saw the Sox come back from an 0-3 hole to beat the Yankees and go on to win a world series. I just cant fathom how anyone would give up on the bills before they are mathematically eliminated. Why watch in the first place--doesnt that make you a "bandwagon" fan?

unlikely. t jackson can throw the ball like an nfl quarterback, meaning defenses would actually have to DEFEND our spread offense. deep routes wouldnt be ignored by safeties, the entire middle of the field would be open up. a handoff to cj could go up the middle for 20 yards a pop, easy. we could sustain scoring drives. 4 deep drives in houston territory, 9 points? if tj gets even 1 td there, the score could be 21-13 in the fourth--a 1 possesion game. tj could turn this entire season around.

do you think its actually going to happen?

my job blocks most every site on the internet... except buffalorumblings.com best believe i will be refreshing it every so often to see if fitz has been benched this week. (i have done this every week this year,) but THIS week, before a make or break divisional game?

i mean, the defense has been bad--for a half against the jets, a half against the pats, a half against the niners, and... most of the tennessee game. ok, so bad d out of 8 games, for a total of 2 and a half games. i have to have to have to believe that with a MEDIOCRE nfl quarterback under center, we are 5-3. I think we would have beaten the jets, beat the titans, and MAYBE beat the patriots. we could easily be 6-2. the fact that we even have 3 wins is a testament to how good our oline, our running backs, and yes, our 32nd ranked defense is. i cant believe we were even in this game today. a good qb would go a long way towards righting this ship.

i hear you man. but if the change wasnt made over the bye... will it really happen now?

This game is the most important game of the week right now. A giants win and the 6 seed in the American Conference will be just 4-4, putting the Bills only 1 game back, with half a season to go. A Steelers win, and the Bills will be looking at a 2 game hole. Forget about how awful Fitz is for just 3 hours, and post in here about this interconference battle!

i wish more than anything that you are right, OP. i have typed out and deleted a long post in response to this thread 3 times now, but all i can say is i hope with all my heart that you are right.

now we go on the road to new england, who is coming off their bye. gailey is terrible in divisional contests, so is fitz. average losses by 20+ points. what will it take to get fitz benched? to get gailey fired? to get spiller the ball? this team makes me so dissapointed, really ruins my weekends, it just sucks the life out of me following them. they are run worse than most d3 colleges, they just cant get it right.