ThurmasThoman
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Posts posted by ThurmasThoman
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difference being, that was a team trending downward, signing aging vets, and going for glory all at once... and 8-8 was considered a failure.
this team is building from the ground up... from below the ground up, if thats possible. 8-8 would be a success story, and we look improved from last season.
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espn is already showing us TONS of love, which is good enough for me.
check out this story:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=280907002
my favorite part from it
"Perfect, might also come close to describing how everyone else -- offense, defense and special teams -- played in helping Buffalo open the regular season"
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i don't know if we should be number 1 in espns power rankings, but ill say this.
our record last year was 4-12, but the second half of the season, we were a .500 ball ckub, and the second quarter of the season, we played great ball, taking some of the leagues best right down to the wire.
this team, this year, is better than that team, last year.
when you looked at our schedule BEFORE YESTERDAY, to me, 13 games were in play (all but the new england and philly games.)
now? i think it's fair to say that every game is "winnable," which to me means, when you sit down in front of the tv on sunday, beer in hand, bills shirt on back, for 3 hours of football, the first thought shouldn't be "how will we lose." every game from now til week 17 is watchable/meaningful.
sure, the chiefs aren't a great team, but you know what? 20 teams don't even make the playoffs in this league. not every week is going to be a decisive win over the leagues best. but new england and pittsburgh don't make conference championship appearances every year by playing each other 16 times a season - they do it by beating teams like the 2009 buffalo bills consistently. give me 10 wins like yesterday over the cincinnatis and miamis of the league, and let the chips fall where they may.
let's grab a wildcard before we start asking ourselves what wins mean.
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im encouraged that we're almost on page 3 and no one has said los angeles, ralph wilson or russ brandon yet.
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Just judging from the stuff I've read over there this week, the Chiefs must have the dumbest, most back assward fans in the league.
heard their mods ban posters who criticize the head coach.
lmao.
imagine this board if the ban hammer came down for criticizing team management! literally LOL.
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i'm tempering my expectation until we smoke oakland in a similar fashion.
it's the nfl, its all about parity.
and i would say us and oakland are pretty evenly matched.
im worried about the way everyone is looking at this game as an automatic (easy) win.
id say its
25% likely they blow us out
25% likely they win by a td or less
25% likely we win by a td or less
25% likely we blow them out
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Hope you are right.
PTR
it's not about being right, it's just about looking at the facts.
ralph wilson is from detroit, he lives in detroit, he doesn't stay in buffalo, and despite what he says, he doesn't care about buffalo.
the bills, to him, are a very lucrative business.
if the bills were going to move to LA, they would have moved to LA (or any other "sexy" market, like san antonio, alabama, oklahoma city, etc.) LONG before we had the internet to make our feelings known on message boards.
the reason why the LA bills don't exist at this very moment, is because the western ny/toronto market is all alone for the bills.
in terms of city size in the western hemisphere it goes:
mexico city
new york
LA
chicago
TORONTO
you don't move the bills from toronto to LA to make money.
you make the bills profitable in western new york. which is what they are currently doing by playing a game in toronto every year. im 100% positive goodell had something to do with that decision.
and let's say, worst possible scenario, ralph dies this season, AEG targets the bills, buys the bills, bills move to LA.
in... MAYBE a year, but possibly before the next season, the jaguars would move here and retain the bills colors/franchise history.
9th most profitable team in the league playing in the 5th biggest market on this side of the globe.
i can't stress enough that the bills aren't leaving.
i mean, i really can think of no other way to put it besides i would wager the balance of my years on this planet against an extra 5 seconds to live on there being a football team in western new york for as long as the league exists.
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You don't get why an entertainment franchise would see more potential in LA than buffalo? Regardless ofthe previous flops, many CEOs will say they can do it different. The rams and raiders are hardly model franchises.
the other nfl owners won't let the bills move from western new york to LA.
IT'S TOO LARGE OF A MARKET AND WITH A FAILING, MISERABLE, AWFUL PRODUCT IS MORE PROFITABLE THAN 2/3RDS OF THE LEAGUE.
how this is hard to understand, is beyond me.
if promo was on a dallas board, it would be
"jerry jones is going to die. dallas is a big market, but LA is bigger. better hope we get a ring soon, because once he's gone, you can kiss the cowboys good bye too."
the nfl is not leaving western new york/toronto.
not this year, not next year, not when ralph wilson dies, not when his kids die, not when you die, when i die, when anyone dies.
the bills monopolize the entirety of one of the largest media markets in the western hemisphere of this planet, and manage to do it with a brand that is absolute trash. if this team manages to win and become trendy, like the pats did this past decade, it's value will be higher than all but a few franchises. the nfl came back to CLEVELAND because it has a niche of f*cking OHIO that it found profitable and lucrative. stop being blind to the facts that the nfl is not going to leave the toronto market, and it's millions of undivided fans, when there's jacksonville, san diego and st. louis, all of which play in divided markets and have been mentioned CONTINUOUSLY as the franchises most likely to move.
not only most likely to move - but targeted by the people building a stadium in LA.
this relocation talk is so ridiculous and tiring.
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All in all, everyone waiting for Ralph to go thinking the Bills will magically improve when that happens better get used cheering for them in L.A. because there is about a 1% chance they stay in WNY.
PTR
the toronto market is enormous, and the bills are the only brand in all of western new york and that toronto metro area.
you have a 1% understanding of this situation if you think there will never be football in western new york after ralph wilson dies.
it's too big, it's too much of a proven market, it's too much of a guarantee.
people are killing themselves to put a team in LA, which has been a failing proposition two? three? times? i lost count.
if the nfl leaves buffalo, the nfl will come back to buffalo quicker than it came back to cleveland.
a winning team would be immensely profitable in this region in this day and age.
take your toe off the shotgun trigger.
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If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.
jim rome loves the buffalo bills.
if we beat the chiefs this weekend, you can expect him to start riding for us hard.
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100 million before jail, 100 million after.
one of the best athletes to ever play the game of football.
incredible talent.
scary to think what we would be anticipating this season if he was our qb.
a conference championship date against the pats?
a trip to the super bowl?
who knows.
instead, lets preach morality for dogs and hope he blows out a knee, and be thankful goodell told him not to sign here...
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Sit? He should be cut. Guy's to injury-prone to secede in the NFL.
the south will rise agin!
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if we win the 3rd game of the year against the pats, the playoffs are a guarantee.
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no. the mood hasn't changed for the fans. or for the team.
the mood has changed for bi-polar message board posters who 7 days ago thought a scrimmage doomed us for an entire season of football.
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should have gone for 1. wtf.
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1- We won't be drafting 1st overall we are easily a 5-7 win team this season anyway we won't be drafting in the top 5. (Personally have them pegged for 7-9)
2- Lets see how Luck preforms this season the guy is an epic prospect but the longer you stay in the limelight the more people see the warts. Trust me the hype will go down, even thought he will likely go 1st overall its hard to see this best QB prospect ever hype lasting the more game action he sees the more likely a flaw to his game will be exposed.
whoa whoa whoa... you don't belong on this board man.
what's up with this logical, reasonable, measured response?
5-7 wins? impossible. we're going 0-16.
luck isn't the best football player in the history of organized sporting competition who will undoubtedly go the slot before us in the draft, and SOMEHOW end up in either miami, new york or new england, and torment us for the next 15 years?
incredible, and, quite frankly, very hard to believe.
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gonna be interesting to see how he does without harbaugh as coach. what if he has a terrible year?
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you fool - didn't you get the memo that for fans and critics of 31 of the 32 nfl franchises, preseason games mean absolutely nothing, and a player should be given at least the entirety of the coming regular season, if not a few more years, to improve.
if, however, we are discussing the buffalo bills, it's fine to put your season tickets on ebay and burn all your jerseys. the first quarter of our last scrimmage clearly has established that we are doomed to finish 0-16, will go another decade without making the playoffs, and ralph wilson has a deal in place to sell our team to a cabal of los angeles business men.
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*cancels custom andrew luck jersey order from nfl.com*
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very good post, and in general what i've been saying for a year now.
basically - the team that gailey and nix inherited was absolutely, without a doubt, devoid of top level nfl talent. whether you want to blame that on
rus brandon, tom modrak, dick jauron, ralph wilson, marv levy or anyone else is your own personal perogative, but the fact of the matter is, the best talent on our team couldn't even get us to .500.
last years team won 4 games, and we drafted 3rd.
if you literally replaced every single player with a cripple, at worst, we would move up 2 spots in the draft.
again, to reiterate, if the buffalo bills fielded a team of paraplegics this season, in a worst case scenario, our draft position would change 2 slots.
why ANYONE who considers themselves a fan, would bemoan the loss of ANY of the players on that roster is beyond me.
lee evans didn't even have good numbers last season!!!
do people on here honestly think that the bills could have done better than a fourth round pick? how, exactly, in your mind do you envision that conversation going with nix?
"hey, you could have gotten more than a 4th for lee evans."
"i could have?"
"yes"
"the possibility of trying to get a higher pick never crossed my mind young man. you seem to have a natural gift for running a professional sports organization, would you like to come work for the buffalo bills?"
and as for why we haven't signed more free agents... why would a free agent want to come play here? were rebuilding. playoffs/national tv/fame and fortune... or join a rebuilding project?
clear this team out. the defense is obviously improving, and it's clear that they started addressing that first.
next draft, im sure it will be the oline.
man... we're rebuilding. washington has been "rebuilding" for a decade plus with snyder, using the exact method that every fan on this board seems to want to see. buy the best players to fill positions. how's that working.
new england
pittsburgh
green bay
indianapolis
all franchises who use the draft, waiver wire, and bargain bin free agents to build super bowl winning teams. it doesn't happen over night, and were going to need a better quarterback, but ill take this approach to a "lets spend 25 million this week so we can maybe make the playoffs" approach any day of the week.
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there are spam accounts on here?
are you kidding me?
no wonder i'm having such a hard time unloading all these nikes.
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Agreed. Now for the negative. If Dareus turns into the next Bruce Smith, I highly doubt the Bills will be able to re-sign him.
when his rookie contract is up, we will have to spend to the salary floor. because we have so much cap space this season, and im guessing we will next season, it's not inconceivable that players like dareus, johnson, spiller (if he reaches his potential) et. al will receive monster contracts from us.
gonna feel like the 90s again if we get a good qb, with our big name players staying put.
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i guess for me, even though it's a rebuilding year, i would be happy going into our last 4 games with a chance at a wild card. i just want those december games to mean SOMETHING.
even if it's reading espn scenarios like
"bills need a win and a ten/ind/hou loss, or a sd tie, or a den/nyj loss and ind tie."
the mind bending mathematical wild card formulas that make december football worth while.
because as much as i like the bills, its only human nature when we've been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, to cheer losses, in hopes of earning a better draft spot. and it sucks to watch games and hope we lose
so yeah, just give me a fight for a wild card in december and i'm good.
remember 07? when we were playing... i think it was cleveland in cleveland... with 3 or 4 weeks to go... and we were still alive for the playoffs?
even though we finished 7-9... that was still a somewhat enjoyable season, because the majority of the games were meaningful.
4-12, eliminated by week 8? not so much...
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it's the nfl, there's no guaranteed contracts. you can't "lose" a locker room - not like the nba.
in the nba, players openly quit on their coach.
there's tmac, a player with an albatross of a contract, openly laughing at his coach. tmacs getting his millions, he can do whatever he wants. hell, detroit could cut him, trade him, whatever, he'll still get paid.
if fred jackson acts up, fred jackson gets cut. it's as simple as that in the nfl.
so no, i wouldn't worry about what gaily does during the preseason. and if the players care that much, guess what? we've been GARBAGE since every single one of them has put on a bills jersey. cut them all and sign practice squad players in their place - who cares? what are we, going to be worse than 4-12? oh no! the horror!
if you don't like it, play better.
or join trent edwards in oakland.
it's that simple.
accountability is the first step to success. there's no such thing as job security at one bills drive, it all depends on your play on the field.
for an example of how this philosophy plays out, see the patriots, new england, and their promotion of brady to starting qb over drew bledsoe based on his performance on the field.
Another Lee Evans thread......
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
this is like when favre was playing, would put up a
15/34, 1td, 4int game
and espn would say something along the lines of
"he's just out there being a gunslinger, having fun out there. the real value to his team, is that he makes his team mates better!"
lee evans:
no catches, no yards, no touchdowns
"if you can't see his value to the ravens, you don't know anything about football. completely changes the way the game is played. so good, he doesn't need to touch the ball to be a difference maker."
let's take this to other sports.
kobe bryant, 0/16 from the field, no points, fouled out in the fourth.
"kobe bryant, clearly the best player in the league, had double coverage all night but is such a good player, managed to turn an 0/16 night shooting into one of the main reasons the lakers are a championship contender this season."