ThurmasThoman

completely agree. hated every facet of our gameplan offensively today--but that punt was the right call at the right time. cards had put together back to back drives to get well within field goal range, to tie and (attempt to) win the game, respectively. buckle your seat belts for this one, but lindell sucks as a pressure kicker on anything over 30 yards, and i made this thread when he got injured last year, but IN GAMES WITH "IMPLICATIONS" for the buffalo bills (and theres only been about 5 of them in his career,) where the bills are still in a playoff hunt, lindell on kicks in the fourth quarter is like, 30%. he misses that, cards ball at midfield and they only need to go 10 yards to win.

the best gaileys amazing, unable to grasp offense has ever been was the between preseason and our bye week last year--the year of the lockout. the time when he had to trim it down to make it easier because they didnt have a full camp to prepare. which tells me one thing -- the team has playmakers that just need the ball in space to be great.

i just dont understand how anyone can watch this team for more than a quarter, and think ryan fitzpatrick is the answer at quarterback. he will never win games for us. with that being said - how many REGULAR SEASON GAMES have we seen thigpen play in, where he has a full 60 minutes to play, with our starters, behind our starting offensive line, with our 2 all pro backs, with our defense coming on to the field if we have to punt it away. i know i know i know, in his 6 preseason games, hes looked bad who cares though? fitz has looked awful in every preseason game too. only difference is, when the bullets start flying, fitz has managed to scrape together 12 wins for us! (over 3 years.) this is why the bills suck - 3 hard years of evidence that fitz is NOT going to win games for us. but yet management, and a significant portion of this board, thinks that EIGHT FREAKING YEARS into his career, the harvard kid is going to be able to throw it longer than 10 yards?

ummmm, ones springing to mind for me.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but rather than the bills coming out and dominating the cardinals in all facets of the game, a part of me (a bigger part of me than id care to admit) wants fitz to come out and throw 4 picks in the first half and get benched. I think at this point, as every thread on the main page can attest to, we know fitz isnt the answer. But the thing is, theres so much talent on this team right now, that a QB switch could energize this team going into a winnable game next week at home against tennessee, and then into our bye week. It seems like the kick in the pants this team needs to turn the season around, but it's only going to happen if fitz bombs AGAIN. if we win in arizona, then come home and beat the titans with fitz under center, we'll be 4-3 heading into the bye, but will anyone REALLY feel confident in our ability to go on the road and beat new england and houston? we know how fitz plays in big games, theres no way we win those. BUT, if thigpen comes in this week, plays well, then we smoke tennessee at home, suddenly, were 3-4 heading into the bye week, but playing with a hot hand at qb, and our next two opponents have no idea how to game plan for us. do they try to take away the run? what if thigpen has an arm and can beat them deep? it might be the perfect time to make this switch - because if we COULD get a split from houston/new england with thigpen at qb, the direction of the team is going to seem a lot more solid heading into the (cake) backend of our schedule.

this is currently whats driving me crazy as a bills fan. the "well we KNOW thigpen and jackson arent the answer." do we? ive never seen them play for us in a regular season game... i have seen fitz play for us for about 2 seasons of regular season games now, and were awful with him. absolutely awful. IF, last season, just one of those picks against new england hadnt happened in the first game, or our miracle against oakland handt happened, the calls for this guys head would be deafening. he has done NOTHING to warrant this type of support - save for our "hot" (lucky) start last year. the only thing is, now theres too much talent on this team to be happy with such a bad qb. its time to turn the page. guarantee thigpen would have had us in the jets game, and won us the new england game. you cant turn the ball over and expect to win in the NFL. the thing about fitz... the passes he has made... these are not amazing passes that are resulting from reading the defense and putting the ball where only his receivers can get it. he's just dinking and dunking, and occassionally spiller will bust one and boost fitzs stats through the roof. my god, tavaris jackson could lead us to the super bowl with the talent we have. the difference between tavaris jackson and fitz? tj can throw it further than my wife. and this is coming from someone (me) whos favorite player on the bills since kelly has been fitzpatrick. hes just useless now though, im over it, bye buddy, dont let the door hit you on the way out.

this is one of the funniest lines i've ever read here--you delivered it perfectly. i have a very dry sense of humor and i literally laughed out loud. its true though. and sad. we have brad smith, who has proven he can run the ball, throw the ball, and catch the ball - we utilize him 2 to 3 times a game. we have two amazing running backs, one of which (cj) has hands and can catch the ball in traffic. we have an all pro at wideout in stevie. we have a good tight end. graham appears to be a burner who can make plays in space. and yet, gailey insists on lining up 5 wide, empty backfield, and running go routes all day long. i hate our coach. i could put up bigger numbers running our offense than him. why not put tavaris jackson in, line up cj and freddy in the backfield, send brad smith in motion, and have graham and stevie split wide, with nelson at te. that ball could literally go ANYWHERE, including a qb keeper. or better yet, why not put brad smith at qb and just run the freaking option? why dont we keep the ball on the ground? i hate gailey.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1970/ here are the standings from the year the leagues merged and became the nfl, 42 years ago. whats one thing you notice when you look at it? every city that had a team when the league merged, has one today, with the exclusion of LA, who has had teams since then, and will have TWO again shortly (via expansion.) so lets write that differently: "buffalo bills fans are such f*cking losers, they are 100% confident they will be the first fanbase in the history of the national football league to permanently lose a team, despite being a historic franchise, playing in the 4th largest media market in the hemisphere, and having the ability to sell out a game at a moments notice despite the fact that the product on the field has been garbage for 15 years." i mean, can we just end the talk about this team moving already? maybe russ doesnt answer questions about whats going to happen about the team when his boss dies, because he doesnt think its in good taste to answer questions about whats going to happen to the TEAM WHEN HIS BOSS DIES? bills fans are like the 18 year old girlfriend that asks you every 20 minutes "whats wrong, you seem quiet?" i mean, have you ACTIVELY walked through the potential scenarios that will happen when ralph dies? anyone? ralph dies, team gets auctioned. ok, well, either he dies during the season, or not, but either way there will still be football to be played, and the bills will be the buffalo bills under a new owner. so what does this new owner do? Moneybags Mcowner just bought a new toy, and so he brings on his people, really make a splash. new gm, new coach (maybe cowher?) whole new outlook. clearly, with this new direction for the bills, enthusiasm in the area is sky high. russ brandons job becmoes redundant. tickets sell themselves. ticket prices get raised, but it doesnt matter, because fans finally have what they want: a new owner committed to winning. a new organizational philosophy. brady is retired, the jets and phins are in shambles, and suddenly, this new bills team is in first in the east. the stadium keeps selling out. the bills are playing in prime time?! the ball's really rolling now. that toronto game suddenly becomes a blessing - hey, instead of it being a throwaway game, it becomes a premier game. its no longer an automatic loss for the bills, its a game they know will be on sunday/monday/thursday night, against a good opponent. national attention comes back to the lovable bills, just like it does every time we manage to put together a 3 game winning streak. because, like the cubs, or the red sox, we are lovable losers - a national brand. and then, in the midst of this, according to most posters on this board, our new owner decides that he's going to leave this money printing machine he just bought to move the team to greener pastures? really though, someone, break down why this is going to happen in a more logical way than my last 3 posts. id love to read it. tell me why the bills are going to move in a detailed response, that doesnt include 1) ralph is old and/or 2) were the bills if you cant, can we just once and for all consider this topic closed?

its crazy to me that you guys follow the NFL and honestly think the bills are going to move. you need to read stories about other teams, i think, for your own sanity. i mean, i dont want to be an ass, but honestly, do you imagine the rest of the league as a vaccuum, with owners that will live forever, never to sell their teams, all in a better financial position than the buffalo bills? roger goodell only cares about the image of the league, and the buffalo bills, as much as you want to deny it, are part of the fabric of the game. the league moved a team from cleveland, and it. went. horribly. lesson learned. thats why cleveland got a team back shortly thereafter. its not the NBA, and thats why goodell has said there is a plan in place. its like, how can this thread go 4 pages with people saying "it would be nice if they said something," but then when the millions of articles talking about teams that are going to move to LA that never mention the bills are brought up, those articles dont count? there is a list of teams being mentioned to move to LA, and the bills are never on it. worst worst worst worst case scenario, is someday we are "the niagra bills." but if there is a brand new stadium built, and new ownership, and its a half hour drive, would that REALLY kill you? hell, 10-1 odds they wouldnt even brand it as niagra. i think the "buffalo bills" has such a strong identity as a brand, and is able to generate so much profit while putting out such a terrible product, the smarter business move would be to sell that brand to canada, and regionalize the brand itself, maybe try to draw in some of that toronto marke to.... hey, wait a second...

you guys, this all comes down to fitz. what more can gailey do. stevie has been WIDE open deep several times this season, a few times each game. so has graham, so has spiller, so has everyone. fitz underthrows it every time, or worse, throws a pick. theres not a coach in the world who could make a difference. if caldwell took the colts to the super bowl, what does that tell you about the league? last year, the pats and giants played in the super bowl, and their defenses were both ranked in the bottom 5 of the league. fitz cant make all the throws necessary to be a succesful nfl quarterback, and with the way the nfl is now structured, that means we CAN NOT WIN A SUPERBOWL WITH FITZ AT QUARTERBACK, RUNNING THIS OFFENSE. because of that reason, and that reason alone, he should be benched, and we should move on to thigpen. if gailey doesnt make that switch after this week, then he should be fired for that reason, but not for schematics or motivation.

exactly. i live here. growing up (before brady,) on sundays, i would always TRY to get my friends to come over and watch football, talk about football in school, play football video games... anything. no one.. i repeat.. NO ONE my age (im 30 now) cared about football in the least. i mean, it was as irrelevant here as trying to teach kids in florida how to make a snow ball. this went on through all of middle school, and ALL of high school. then, the pats won a super bowl, and it was like... people STILL didnt care. i cant explain it. if the bills won the super bowl, my god, it would be one of the best moments of my life.. but up here? man, it was just like, "oh the pats won the super bowl, thats nice." ok, so then the next year they missed the playoffs, and the football scene here was dead. THEN when they won back to back, this new breed of pats "fan" emerged. it was like, they went from lovable underdogs, to everyone north of connecticut suddenly thinking that new england patriots football was the only "dynasty" that has every existed, and because the bills have been bad for the entire time the patriots have been good, the bills should be laughed at, and theyre not a "real" football team. and the worst worst worst worst part about it is: theyre so ignorant about football, they dont realize that the dolphins and the bills both suck right now not because were lower class citizens of the football world, but because we lost our all-pro quarterbacks, and the patriots stumbled into theirs by blind luck-but when brady retires, their run is over, and the pats will return to decades of irrelevance-BUT PATRIOT FANS WONT WATCH SO IT DOESNT MATTER! theyll just move on to talking about the bruins or the celtics or the red sox, and the pats will go back to being insignificant. and we'll never get the joy of dominating them, because there will be no one to dominate. thats the thing--pats fans have ripped on us for a decade now, on every comment section of every article on the web, and bills fans are the most gracious people on the planet. we laugh with them, we dont talk smack, we hope for wins. but when were on the top of the division again, and we talk a little good natured smack, it will be to crickets in the room. i cant explain this in less than 40,000 words, and im sorry, but you have to grow up in new england to hate the patriots as much as i do. i look forward to bills games for 9 months, these guys could care less, and they lucked into a dominant decade of football. it drives me crazy. its like, their fans always make fun of us for playing a game in toronto, "ohhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh duhhhhhhhh when are the bills moving to toronto lol" they dont even realize they used to be the BOSTON patriots til their owner regionalized the team to make more money. ahhhhhh not even patriots week and im going crazy, i need to log off, peace.

this guy right here. i picture you looking like this as i read that post. "FACT. the reason we have not made the playoffs in 12 yerars is not because of a candle." funny story OP, let me do you one better. i work with statistics all day, ive never been to church, i consider myself a pretty rational guy-hardly superstitious. fall of 1994, (following bills last super bowl appearance,) i was doing a project at school with some friends, that necessitated us going to one kids house to all work together--i cant recall all the details (i was in elementary school) but it was some sort of a "cultural fair," where we had to learn about another country, and we had india, so i think we were making a poster or something(?) anyways, i go to this kids house, and immediately we started playing nintendo, not working. by the end of the afternoon, we had accomplished nothing, but had advanced very far in ducktails. he let me borrow the game, i left, the cultural fair happened, fourth grade happened, fifth grade, sixth grade, and on and on. but every year, i realized, "i still have this kids freaking duck tails game." and at some point... i realized that the bills havent been back to the super bowl since i borrowed that kids duck tails game." he moved to minnesota, then moved back, then deactivated his facebook. so this offseason, after we signed mario, i attempted to "break" the curse... i sold the game on ebay. i actually told my wife the whole story, and sadly, she didnt think i was crazy. well someone bought the game, but i kept the money. my wife said give the money to a charity. its too early to say that the ducktails game was not, in fact, the reason we havent been back to the superbowl. but if we dont make it this year, signs point to it being a flaw within the bills organiztion, not the nintendo carteridge that was in my basement for 20 years.

yet were half a game back from a wildcard, a game back from the division and a home wild card, and the second half of our schedule is mostly home games against crummy teams. basically, your post says, "i dont like watching the bills, i need to complain."

the difference in prop betting between the 5/6/7/8 seeds is insignificant and the line moves minutely in one direction or the other as the weeks go by. that is my point. youre right, you got me, right now were a 7 seed, 2 weeks ago we were a 6, next week we might be a 5 or an 8. we are part of the "wild card" mix of prop betting that no one is ready to rule us out or in just yet. a manning injury, a bad week from rothlisberger, a bills dominating win, a norv turner 4th quarter melt down, these things move the lines a little, but CLEARLY vegas has staked oakland/indy/tennessee/cleveland/kansas city/jacksonville as their seasons being over. and has buffalo/cincy/miami/new york/denver/san diego/ pittsburgh as middle of the pack, fighting it out for a wild card and baltimore/new england/houston as being the best in the conference. if this is going over your head (which it seems to be) look at it like this: vegas has looked at miamis schedule (which is similar to ours) and has them conteding for a wildcard, just like us. that must mean that they have NO faith in cincys young quarterback, and cincys schedule. hey, what do you know, didnt the dolphins just beat the bengals yesterday, in a game no one could have predicted, except for the guys out west who have made billions of dollars predicting these things. no i completely agree with you here. las vegas does not think the bills will make the playoffs. but las vegas also does not think the bills WONT make the playoffs. thats the most important thing. a line in the sand has been drawn early in the season in las vegas, and they already think 6 teams are out of it. the buffalo bills are NOT one of those teams. mmmm idk, depends on where you bet, and what line you got, and what the bet was. as this thread is saying, seems like a 50/50 bet right now, so you would get even money. would you bet 5000$ on a coin flip?

this is a lot of questions that will take a long time to answer. I just assumed that everyone had a gambling problem like me - im wrong. lets tackle these one by one. is the nfl rigged? yes. every major sport in the world is rigged. its just part of the nature of the beast. people try to separate the action on the field from the reality of the situation, for good reason. sports are fun, and we dont want to accept the true nature of what were seeing. but if sports were random, there wouldnt be an oasis in the middle of the desert, run by the mob, funded by "predicting" outcomes of these contests. look at the nba refs, look at spygate. las vegas sets a line, all you have to do is get to one quarterback, one coach, one ref, and you can change the outcome. its just how it is. it is in the best interest of everyone involved to downplay this influence, but it exists. if you dont think it is, i got a prop bet for whats written on the ceiling above your head to make with you. and yes, you could make DECENT money betting that the bills dont make the playoffs. thats the whole point of this thread. we, as posters, have a knowledge base valued at = nothing. las vegas, as a town, has a knowledge abse valued at = billions. we, as posters, think the bills are terrible and wont make the playoffs. las vegas, as oddmakers, disagrees, and thinks the bills are essentially a push bet for a 6 seed. you could take your intimate knowledge that the bills are the worst team in professional football, and bet on them to not make the playoffs. las vegas is saying, with an equity of decades of line setting, that they disagree. THAT is the point of this thread.

it has nothing to do with betting on Buffalo every week. man. i think you guys need to each put 100$ on sportsbook.com and gamble for a year, and then we could have this discussion. we might lose next week. we might lose our next 3, who knows. this is a PROP bet. a FUTURE bet. this is for something 3 months out. it has stayed relatively close to this line for 2 months now. my point is the dichotomy between what this board is like this morning, and what vegas is like. its almost like... this board is over reacting to a loss against a far superior team... and las vegas has had us pegged as a 9-7 6 seed for 3 or 4 months now, BASED ON OUR LATE SEASON SCHEDULE... and losses like last week, this week, and maybe next week are predicted... and the line is staying at and around us on the bubble to... wait for it... encourage people like YOU to bet on them missing the playoffs... so las vegas casinos can... wait for it... MAKE MONEY.

see, now someone like THIS is why las vegas is an oasis in the middle of the desert, and the mob has multi million dollar palaces of neon lights and hookers-because people watch a game like last night, over react, and rush to bury a team... when there are literally hundreds of factors that influence prop betting - (not all of which are "legal.") as i said, their record of predictions far outpaces yours. you make it sound like this is peter king and john clayton sitting at starbucks putting out these lines. everything you said is true, but theyre not ready to risk, what? its a little more important than a blog post they're not willing to risk... theyre not willing to risk the billions and billions of dollars that flow through the city in bets that the bills are a bad team. we whine and cry on here, and for collateral, were willing to risk you tube videos, avatars and signatures. they make cold, calculated moves, and are NOT willing to risk billions of dollars that the bills season is over. this has nothing to do with my "enthusiasm," its just cold, hard numbers.

In this hypothetical situation, it would depend what the matchup was, and where it was played. There are so many variables, but... If we were playing at the Patriots, them as the 4 us as the 6, I would imagine the line would be 4.5 in the pats favor, because it's a divisional game, and vegas hates divisional games in the playoffs. if we were at the texans, i bet it would be closer to an 8 or a 9, because historically, good teams do better against the bills with more tape on fitzy and more knowledge of gaileys "tricks" if it was at the broncos/ravens/chargers/steelers i would reckon the line would be somewhere between 5 and 7, because we dont play them much, if ever, have played each of those teams close in the last year or 2, and home teams always have about that line in a wild card weekend.

There are no "sucker" bets when you are making a prop bet. That is a term that gamblers use with each other disparagingly. Las Vegas doesn't care about anything besides how the public is betting. They move the lines accordingly, to encourage people to place bets, but also as a reflection of their "knowledge" of the situations, and what they feel is a safe line for them, in terms of making a profit. For instance, this morning, Colts fans are waking up in a state of euphoria, thinking their team is going to make a run at the super bowl, and they are set forever. Well, maybe. But for this season, vegas has them as twice as unlikely as the Bills to win the AFC... and that's AFTER yesterdays games. Now, if EVERYONE puts money on the Colts this week to win the conference, that line could come back... say, from 100-1 odds to 75 to-1. Right now the Bills are at 50-1, the Patriots are at 2-1. It's not power rankings, it's a vegas prop bet. Let's put this another way: If everyone on twobillsdrive.com said, let's pool our money, and bet that the bills DONT make the playoffs - it would be a very risky bet, and pay out pretty handsomely. Now, if we took that money and said, "lets make a bet that the browns/titans/raiders/chiefs/jaguars/colts" DONT make the playoffs, it would pay out peanuts... because Vegas is ruling them out of the playoffs. This isnt a discussion on the strengths of the Buffalo Bills football club: its an observation that house money on vegas is on the Bills contending for a wild card spot... ELEVEN weeks down the road... and Bills fans that are ready to jump off a bridge this morning need to cheer up. its a long season.

Las freaking Vegas. The whining, the crying, the pissing and moaning that the wheels have completely fallen off and the team is 11 games away from becoming the Los Angeles Bills has reached fever pitch here. Much like women in an Aboriginal tribe who have locked into the same menstrual cycle, twobillsdrive.com is an overwhelming display of vaginal and hormonal imbalance. But for the people out west who rig the game, pay off the refs, and pressure Goodell into destroying video tapes that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the game is controlled by factors other than blood, sweat and tears from these proud gladiators on the field (see: spygate,) they see the rest of the season playing out like this: In order of odds win the American Football Conference: 1) Texans 2) Patriots 3) Ravens 4) Chargers/Broncos 5/6) Steelers, Chargers/Broncos 7) Buffalo Bills,Miami Dolphins,New York Jets,Cincinnati Bengals So the Vegas money, RIGHT NOW, the morning when most of you woke up ready to call direct tv to cancel your Sunday ticket, has the bills as a not very profitable prop bet to get a wildcard. i repeat: if you go to las vegas and try to place a prop bet at one of the casinos on the Bills getting a 6 seed, you would get essentially a push bet. Meaning Vegas, who's business it is to be right about these things... literally, it is their source of profit... thinks it's a safe bet the Bills will contend for a wild card spot. I want you to think about that for awhile, before you respond with the "big whoop, that doesnt mean anything." Because if you've ever gambled before... you would know... it means EVERYTHING. no offense... actually, i dont care if I offend you... vegas is right about professional football a HELL of a lot more than ANYONE ive ever seen predict ANYTHING 3 months out on this board. If they werent, you would be the billionaire building hotels in the middle of the desert - not them. So... go ahead and flame away, and talk about how bad our defense is, and how my head is up my ass, and on and on and on. Every gambler knows, its the emotional ones who make stupid bets - like bills fans. But the house money is on the Bills to be RIGHT THERE in week 17 for a wild card spot.

itll start next week with an easy win against the cardinals.

i guarantee 9-7 and a wildcard. would bet any amount of money youre comfortable wagering.

if the defense showed up to PLAY today, and held the san francisco 49ers to 6 points, we STILL would have lost, and lost bad. why play defense if you know anything less than a shutout is probably going to result in a loss? i hope fitz is cut tomorrow, i really do. the only thing that would make me happier at this point is if he's cut tonight.

dreaming? were 2-3. were not 0-5. the last wild-card is 2-2. we are literally half a game back, and with the second half of our schedule being mostly at home, and mostly against mediocre to terrible teams, the odds of us getting a wild card are great. fitz is so bad, youre not realizing how much better we would be with a quarterback who is SOMEWHAT competent. if teams were forced to start their drives at say... oh, idk... their own 20 after we kicked off, maybe they would have a harder time scoring than when they start their drives at OUR 20? just a thought.

the only thing more ridiculous than today's game, is this post. " a hole that virtually eliminates them from the playoffs" "this season is beyond being salvaged" meanwhile, according to the standings, were half a game back, with 2 winnable games coming up. believe me, im as much of a doom-and-gloom, the sky is falling, fire gailey immediately, cut fitz before arizona, start tavaris jackson guy as any other poster on this board... but there is so much talent on this team.. defensively, along the o line, in the backfield... one qb switch, hell, even to thigpen, and i firmly.. FIRMLY.. believe this becomes a 5 seed in the afc. ryan fitzpatrick is the reason we lost today, lost last week, and lost in week 1. at the most important position in the game of professional football, we have a guy who can not throw the football. it is a problem. thigpen has looked bad in the preseason because once fitz sits, the starters sit with him. i guarantee you every penny in my bank account, if you put thigpen in, behind our healthy oline, with the weapons we have on offense, he could do so.. SO GODD*MN.. much better than fitzpatrick. gailey was decisive in 09 when we were 0-2 in cutting edwards. the time is now. this experiment has ended. swallow the money, cut fitz. its time to move on.