MDBills

I keep hearing people make excuses for Buffalo being injured, with rebuttals that injuries are no excuse, RE: 2010 Packers. My question is this: Why does Buffalo always seem to be one of the leaders in the NFL in injuries, guys put on IR. I'm not talking out for a few weeks, I mean out for the season. My observation is, yeah, we have little depth on both sides of the ball, but damn! We seem to have guys go down all the time. Is this a coincidence? Is something wrong with our strength and conditioning coaches? Do we not know how to tackle? Fall right? I watched Fitz today be off the mark a lot, with (I almost hate to say it) Brad Smith making a few nice plays to bail out what could have been a disastrous first half. Nelson caught a slant today with his ribs clearly exposed and (this time) he held on after a big pop. Spiller missed a cross when the ball was behind him. Fitz' lack of accuracy cannot help, but that doesn't explain injuries at every position. Thoughts?

Thought I was the only one who noticed this in my post on the "We are who we thought we were" thread yesterday. Saw nothing in the media about this stupid decision, and I echo the dude who brings up the Cincy game where they did this 3X in a row on 3rd and less than 5 (20 yd pass plays that fail). Chan/Fitz have a habit for dialing up the exact wrong play at the wrong time, and I don't care if it should be easier on 4th and 2 than 2nd and 2, it's stupid and mismanagement. Didn't even need to go for it there, plenty of time lest in the first half and points were what was needed, but if you're going to go for it, use a 2-4 yard designed play instead of going into the end zone. Because of the rush, I also agree that this play happened fast and Fitz did not look elsewhere, this was where he was going all along.

I've been to Jerry's World and was wondering if the Bills would be overwhelmed by the moment and hoping they wouldn't. Then they proceeded to look more hapless than I ever would have imagined, starting with McKelvin trying for a pick in the endzone and having the receiver take the ball off his nose. Embarrassing, but OK, let's get the ball. Hey, no one is lined up on Ware on the first play from scrimmage guys! No worries, how good can he be. Let's call a pass. Oops! I keep hearing apologies for Gailey and the play calling but I'm sorry, how can you cover when down 21-7 with plenty of time to go still in the first half going for it on 4th and 2 and taking 3 perfectly good points off the board (after trying a 52 yarder earlier with a brand new kicker picked off the ash heap). OK, Fred Jackson is averaging about 8 yards a carry through his 5 freaking carries so far, so pound the rock or dial up a play designed to get 2-4 yards. Stupid me, I didn't realize the call was to go 22 yards to the endzone on that situation to a blanketed, short in stature receiver. Who the hell decided on that play? Reminds me of Cincinnati game, when on 3 straight series with 3rd and 5 or less we threw 20+ yard passes on 7 step drops. Now I'm watching NY Giants and San Fran, and see how Eli Manning can be made to look very good by the right play call in the right situation, making sure they get first downs knowing that touch downs will follow. Give me Coughlin calling the plays and shortening the game like the Gmen did against us in the Super Bowl. The Bills got away with this crap in the New England game because their defense is horrible, where they baited us into a passing shoot out from the first freaking play. Jackson was running well, Dallas' defensive weakness is against the run, yet we did not hardly use him at all before the game was way out of hand, and then it was too late. We became completely one dimensional. They showed a screen stat about half way through the game where the pass-happy (supposedly) Cowboys had a nice, balance 19-19 pass to run, and we were 20-10. Wouldn't have changed this game outcome, but for God's sake, the coaching in this game and many others has been horrible. Defense is bad yes, but that is not what is causing the offensive problems. Our greedy and stupid play calling has us now walking away from a lot of points in the red zone (I was at the Jets game, same thing). Even the touchdown today was, in my view, the wrong call. 1st and goal from the 3, Jackson running wild, and what did we do? Two straight rollout pass plays, the 2nd fortunately working out. Who the hell are we fooling? This road trip scared the hell out of me but the solace was that excepting the Jets game, they have not been blown out. Now two in a row. I agree on the stupid white out thing too. I was at that game and hate the white uniforms.

Is anyone on this thread surprised that Merriman is an injury waiting to happen? As hopeful as I was in pre-season, I told my buds that Merriman would be out by 1/3 into the season, at least for a while, nursing one injury or another. Hate it when I am right. Dude was a steroid abuser who got caught. One of the many reasons these guys take roids is to recuperate from injury. His body was used to that help and now it isn't there. Guy got hurt 15 min in his first practice with this team last year, then was nursing injury after 2 plays against Chicago in pre-season. Merriman = Bob Sanders Nice history, can't help you when they are on the sidelines 2/3 of the season. Whether Merriman is any good when he plays, you guys can debate that. I can prove mathematically that we get zero production out of him when he is not playing.

I'm not buying the argument that if Fitz makes that play it's a genius call. It was a poor decision at this point in the game. I'm also hearing that our defense is a sieve and that is why to go for the throat. Don't get that either. That is exactly why you slow the game down. We were in scoring position. There was 4 minutes left on the clock. Giants game is a grinding, steady drive offense that takes time (usually). People are talking like if we ran there we'd be conceding to a long FG. Huh? It was 1st down! We have 3 plays to take nearly 2 minute off the clock with a run, slant, run...whatever...and then STILL have a good likelihood of either being closer for the FG making it automatic, or moving the chains and being able to run down the clock under the 2 min warning and have NY burn a timeout or 2. We have the number 1 red zone offense in the league. How about we advance the ball into the red zone and test that stat out instead of trying to score from outside of it? Up by 3 or 7 with under 2 minutes and Eli with maybe 1 timeout left to go down the field and us knowing he won't run the ball, I'd say that is a pretty good position to be in. Somebody said it earlier, put the team and players in a position to succeed and stop blaming the QB for making an athletic mistake.

There is no doubt in my mind that this call was the one thing that cost Buffalo this game. As soon as we got that first down, I was in the bar as the only Bills guy in Delaware, throwing down wings, yelling, "OK, now a couple of runs to Freddy, a 3rd down slant if we need one, and move the chains. Even if we fail we take 2 minutes off the clock, walk away with 3." I think they went empty backfield on that play, and when it was setting up and Fitz dropped to pass, I spit my chicken wing onto the floor saying, "What the hell?" Even if he makes that throw and we get 7, wrong call. We'd leave them 4 minutes to tie. Sometimes it pays to win boring and ugly, but win. RE: Last 3 minutes of New England game. I don't blame Rifle for the poor throw, that stuff happens. This game was lost on that poor decision, whoever made it. And on Fred not running well "if you take away the 80 yard run", I'll take my chances in crunch time that dude can get 10 yards on 3 tries without fumbling, even if they know it's coming. He's done enough to prove by me that he is money despite how his last 10 carries have went or even if he's having an off day.