vegas55

This says it all about mentality of NFL refs: I believe it was the Monday night game; referee running down the sideline, is tripped, apparently by somebody on the sideline, falls, and on his way getting up throws a flag. After a conference, they pick up the flag because ref never saw who tripped him; could have been anybody. The mentality on this ref was, I did not really see what happened, but what the hell, I'll call a penalty anyway; just in case. No wonder NFL games are bogged down with penalties. No doubt, NFL players are more talented than college, but there's way more penalties in NFL. Comes from a mindset of just looking for a reason to throw a flag. Back them down, Talibue

5 turnovers to one - should translate into an easy win - except for a coaching staff like this one

Playing at home - receipient of 5 turnovers and 17 fish penalties and still barely hanging on. Zero sacks compared to the jail rush that was the dolphins pass rush. With a 17-0 lead, you would at least expect our sack total to equal fish; but no; completely get our ass kicked on both sides of the ball for the entire second half. Nice coaching staff, Saban makes his adjustments at half time and Mularkey still unable to make one adjustment all year- zero TDs in the second half all year. Big win - pathetic performance especialy from our bargain basement coaching staff. Did Willis have one hole all day!!!! Ronnie Brown sure did

Certainly the play calling must improve in terms of putting the ball in Willis' hands much more often. Though it seemed Losman was passing on virtually every down yesterday, he officially only had 15 attempts. Reason - this defense could not keep the saints off the field! A real clue as to the horrible defensive calls being made by Jerry Gray is the defenses complete failure to stop teams when they are in a third and long situation. It is supposed to be an ideal situation for a defense, but the Bills are yielding a better than 50% conversion rate on third and long! Unbelievable. Predictably calling blitz after blitz on third and long, watching the other team pick it up and leave wide receivers wide open for easy conversions - or letting mobile qbs like vick and brooks stroll up the field while the "blitzers" go flying past the pocket ends up allowing teams to move the chains and dominate time of possesion. The blitz packages aren't fooling anyone anymore, in part due to the fact that this clown of a defensive coordinator had been blitzing the entire preseason, including the Packers scrimmage! Hey Jerry, these are not the Buffalo Bills offensive line, which rarely picks up a blitz. To top it all off, the one game Gray chose not to blitz much was against Tampa Bay, which had the immobile brian griese and three rookie O lineman. What a genius. He has a ton of talent and experience defensively, especially in the defensive backfield and he is getting the very least out of it.

Dont blame TD for not hiring Marvin Lewis: Ralph Wilson refused to pay the going rate for a head coach. Remember Greg williams salary was 800,000.000 - he now makes 1.8 million as an assistant. In the salary cap era where talent is equalized and coaching means everything, multi multi millionaire and wanna be hall of famer ralph wilson was squeezing nickels by refusing to pay the going rate for a head coach. This after the NFL sanctioned him for refusing to pay the last year of Wade Phillips contract - a whopping 750,000.00 - This from a guy who paid 100,000 for a franchise now worth 400 million.

No team is as consistently good as it's best game (Houston) or as bad as its worst (Tampa). Having said that, Coach MM and staff did not do JP any favors this week with the game plan. Tampa's strength is speed and experience, it's weakness handling a determined running game. In the first half we never had back to back running plays. And the dink and dunk passing game will not work if teams are jumping the short routes every time. Stretch the field with some long balls early, and pound the ball. And for christ sakes, lets not line up our inexperienced QB in the shotgun, standing in the endzone, on a third and long. Recipe for disater

Exactly what was Nate Clements doing playing late into the second quarter of the the last preseason game. Every other team is resting their starters in that last preseason game; and in fact Detroit had their third string QB in at the time. I understand the offense getting some extra work, but not a veteran defense which has been playing under the same system for three + years. EVEN WORSE, Clements and our other starting CB were returning punts and kickoffs late into the second quarter. Hey Mike those games don't count, but the game Sunday does, and Nate is a question mark for it. However you feel about Mularkey using starters for so long (and for returning kicks) in the last preseason game, it was a controversial move. And yet, not one word of discussion about it from those stellar "commentators" Tasker and Levy.

After watching the replay of the Bears game, I was surprised how there seemed to be no commentary (except from JP himself) at all about the horrendous play of Losman. An entire defense stacked at the line, focused on stopping Willis, and JP just cannot find a receiver open downfield. Of course that is difficult to do when you constantly jump out of the pocket at the very least sign of a pass rush. He is skittish beyond all belief back there. An NFL QB must, at least occasionally, stand in the pocket and give receivers time to complete their downfield routes. A QB's main function is to throw the ball. not run, otherwise we would start Willis or Parrish at QB. Willis will continue to average about two yards per carry until JP shows he is willing to stand in the pocket and punish a nine man front with some downfield throws. He can spend ten offseasons in Buffalo studying the offense, but its all for nothing if he can't stand in the pocket and pull the trigger.

Somebody posted an NFL network schedule of when the Bills/Colts game was to be played. The post stated Sunday or Monday, but NFL network website lists game to be shown on Wednesday, 8/17. Seems to be a long wait for a game played on Saturday, so I hope the poster was correct. Anyone with additional info ????

ELBERT DUBENION FOR COREY SIMON

The apparent leading contenders for Travis are Jags & Titans. How is he any better off there than in Buffalo. Barring injury (which could just as easily happen in Buffalo) he will still be a backup, to either Taylor or Brown. So he is going to be a malcontent here because he's #2 to Willis, but a happy camper as a #2 with either of those teams? Makes zero sense, but TH isn't that bright anyway. Given the Bills all out offensive commitment to a power running game, travis should be kept as insurance unless someone is willing to part with a second round draft choice.

Lets end the uncertainy at left tackle; in a three way deal, Colts send RB Edgiren James to Arizona (where he signs his long term deal). Arizona gives the Colts LT Shelton, who ship him to Buffalo for Travis Henry. All three are currently under contract, and James is the only one who absolutely must have a new deal. This gives the cards their stud running back, and allows them to use their #1 pick for other needs. Henry a good fit with the Colts, and the Bills need a LT.

Anybody know of a Bills bar or sports bar, (that will show the Bills game) in the St. Petersburg, Fl area???

I loved the win yesterday but parity is such in the NFL that no successful team can continually have its coaching staff make horrible strategic decisions. Yesterday was another example. Forget the end of the first half, the defensive call near the end of the game was unbelievable in its sheer studity. Bills up 22 - 10, less than 5 minutes to go, Jets have the ball with zero time outs. The ONLY logical strategy is a two deep, bend but dont break defense forcing the Jets to dink and dunk, using virtually all the time on the clock just to get within 5. In fact, the only chance the Jets had in that situation was a quick strike TD. So what does the Bills brain trust do? All out blitz, including the safety, leaving Mcghee one on one with Santana Moss, one of the fastest players in the NFL. Brilliant!! So now the Bills were forced to complete a prayer to Evans, long down the sideline, just to keep the ball out of the Jets hands with only a 5 point lead. Thankfully the prayer was answered. No way, given how the Bills dominated yesterday, should they have been put in that position. We have lost plenty of games like that in the past, including several this year. Coaching staff please, you are there to facilitate, not sabotage, your teams efforts. And of course, the astute WNY media asked not one question about this complete coaching lapse.

No better demonstration of Bledsoe's fatal flaw than Sunday - the complete inability to make good decisions under pressure; a must in today's NFL. Mobility is a distant secondary issue; Rob Johnson was mobile but could not make decisions either. Brady is not mobile, great decision maker. The red zone really brings this out, the field is shrunk and the pressure is always there. Every single decision he made in the red zone Sunday was horrible. From his panicky throw to a wide open Moulds to his complete zoning in on Lee Evans, creating triple coverage, then throwing in to it. It does not get worse than that. The longer term issue for the franchise is TD; does he really know what he is doing? They had a huge period of time to evaluate Bledsoe; and chose to commit a lot of money to him; dead cap money as of next year.There was no competition for Bledsoe's services!!! He had the same type of evaluation period with Flutie and Johnson, and was wrong there too as Flutie is still an effective back up in this league and RJ is long gone. Travis's trade value will now take a big hit, as Willis should now take over. I hope he is right about JP, because it now appears that he paid a huge price to get him. There was a huge falling out in Pittsburg between Cowher and TD over player and game philosophy; Pitt chose Cowher, and it appears that was a wise decision.

The game channels are not on the guide yet; if they put them on 48 hours in advance, i would be ok; but it appears impossible to get that info from direct tv.

I have the Direct TV/NFL ticket but will be out of town this Sunday. I want to set my VCR on Friday, to record the game on Sunday. I know the game is on channel 711; but that channel is not currently displayed on Direct TV, so i have no way to preset. It lists channel 720, then 721. I assume the NFKL ticket channels, betwenn 701 - 720 are not activated until Sunday. Any suggestions????????