Grant

There's no reason to feel ashamed for being disinterested in a Bills team that seems to only work hard enough to avoid losing. That doesn't mean you don't support the Buffalo Bills in general, but you don't always have to blindly love and approve of each year's version. These past few versions have shown me little passion and I've rewarded them with the same amount. Everybody recognizes it, but it's somewhat difficult to verbalize. They don't seem to have a lot of genuine fire in their bellies. They never come from behind to win. They always say how prepared they are and how hard they're working, but we never see it. Their goal seems to be the big contract or the highlight and if they happen to win, that's cool too. It wasn't too long ago that the roster seemed full of players that cared about winning first and I can't believe I'm looking to the 98-00 roster sunnily, but at least they showed enthusiasm. Even the 2001 3-13 roster really played to win. I'm just not seeing it right now and I can't force myself to care anymore. I'll always care about the Buffalo Bills but they're going to have to win back my diehard passion, and it doesn't even have to be victories that wins it back. But they need to show me something.

Describes the team pretty well.

Call it "heart," call it "guts," call it "the killing instinct," call it whatever you like - these Bills don't have it and they haven't had it for awhile. Once again, they come up short when they need to be clutch. Once again, they have opportunities to put an opponent away and fail to do so. Once again, the Bills snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose a very winnable game. This team frustrates the hell out of me.

This is a good point, Mike - as bad as things look now, sometimes even rosters with some glaring problems can still overachieve and produce results one would think would be impossible. Such is parity in the NFL.

I doubt this post will go ever well, but the Bills are definitely starting to look like the Bengals of the 90s. We haven't reached the playoffs since 1999. That's 6 years ago now. We haven't won a playoff game since, what, 1995? 10 years ago. Maybe it's just because it's the week after a blowout and most folks are pretty down, but this team's future seems muddled at best. We need a major overhaul of the offensive line and help on the defensive side of the ball, which seems do-able. The coaches seem competent for the most part, except that our offensive coordinator is apparently only useful enough to fill a boxseat and little else. But more problematic is that the team rarely exhibits any heart. How many come-from-behind victories have the Bills had since 2000? Not many that I can recall. Even with an improved offensive line, I can't see the core of this team taking Buffalo far past the wild card round (although I'd love to be wrong!). So, what do you think? Are we just another draft and round of free agency away from a playoff berth? What about a playoff win?

I guess it's the same amount of weight, anyway.

Furthermore, it ought to be some sort of freak accident. Maybe the GoodYear blimp will fall out of the sky and land on him.

If it weren't for these easily excitable ESPN-and-the-like talking heads, people would probably be able to more easily look at football players as what they are: people being paid to do a job.

Made even worse since Nickelback is awful.

There's something positive.

Wait, but isn't it John Butler's fault, and Kevin Gilbride's, Gregg Williams's? That's what Donahoe told me.

They're the first ever Stained Glass Window Defense. They can dress themselves up however they like, but everyone else sees right through them. About as sturdy, too.

Or touchdown receiver.

The last thing I'd do is count Moss out.

It also bears stating that being unhappy with Lindell last year and happy with him this year is NOT something one ought to apologize for, nor does it make you a bad fan or fair weather or whatever. It's absolutely justified to have been displeased with Lindell last year because he was not playing at nearly the same level. Last year, Lindell was ridiculously inconsistent and sometimes would miss FGs that were chip shots. That deserved some raggin'. This year, Lindell is playing great. He's hitting kicks he should make, plus kicks you wouldn't expect him to. This deserves praise. There hasn't been any in this thread, I'm just saying that there's nothing worse than a "oh, you're all stupid for not liking Lindell last year" post (equally as bad as "let's run this player out of town after a single bad game") when, in reality, Lindell did not deserve to be liked last year. This year he does. And we're all happy it's turned out this way.

Lindell has performed WAY above expectations and EVERYBODY is glad.

Replacing Losman mid-game is much more productive than doing it mid-week. Here, Mularkey isn't saying Losman has lost his job, but he's showing him that he's playing himself out of the starting role if he doesn't show improvement.

Well, that's when you get into a tricky area in terms of how to evaluate players. It depends on how you weigh the importance of certain positions. Generally, most people feel that certain positions have more bearing on the success of an offense than others, such as the positions of QB, RB, LT, C and WR. On the other hand, some people believe that all of the positions have equal importance. They believe that a tight end's contribution to the team is equal to the quarterback's contribution. And although there have been changes at other positions for both Dallas and Buffalo, basically the teams are the same on offense besides the QB. It just comes down to which philosphy you adopt when determing a player's worth whether or not you want to compare Drew's performance from this year to last year's.

What? Morals have nothing to do with it. Okay, now you're sayin "truth" instead of "fact." That's a completely different animal (although I'd like to also point out that "facts" are not necessairly always "true) and I'm going to just stop replying to this thread because this is going nowhere; no matter how wrong you are, you're never going to admit it. Especially after all this jumping and screaming you've done.

The most frustrating aspect is that, if I recall correctly, isn't this Spikes's first time he'll be forced to miss a game due to injury? Just when we need our defensive MVP the most.

That's not entirely true. There has to be some grounds for comparison otherwise everything would be completely subjective all the time and that isn't so. There has to be some ground that we all agree on. Some players are bad no matter who they play for, like Rob Johnson, Ryan Leaf, and Erik Flowers. Some players are good no matter who they play for, like Jerry Rice, Ricky Williams, and Takeo Spikes. We look at Drew to see if he can give us an indication of why things were bad when he was here and why things are still bad. If removing him means we start playing better, then that might indicate why things were the way they were. On the other hand, if we still struggle and Dallas shows improvement with Drew as QB, then maybe Drew wasn't the problem? Not to mention, most of us are fans of the NFL and football in general, in addition to being fans of the Buffalo Bills. So we're always interested to see how players in new situations do. That's why there's interest in Drew Bledsoe.

I agree. Most fans saw from the moment Teague began playing for us that he was a far cry from being part of the solution to the problem that is the o-line. And yet, he's still with us. With a raise.

You can keep saying I'm wrong and keep calling opinions "facts," but that doesn't make it so, my friend. This is the last time I'm going to reply to this stupid opinion versus fact "argument", because I'm not here to be your teacher. The first three facts you listed are facts. Those are provable things. The word "better" eliminates the last one from being a fact. "Better" can mean all sorts of things. Maybe the Bills are "better" because they're located in Buffalo or because blue is their color. "Better" is not something you can tangibly prove. You think the Steelers are currently a "better" team than the Bills (and so do I) because they had more wins, allowed fewer yards, have faster players, etc. Just because we both think that those things make the Steelers a "better" team does not mean it a fact. It. Is. Still. An. Opinion. Also, tackling isn't the only responsibility of a linebacker. That's the funny thing about the linebacking position. They're in-between the defensive line and the secondary. So, linebackers have to do a little bit of both. Linebackers have to be the most versaitle players on a defense. Therefore, while tackling is a big part of linebacking, so is pass defense. Takeo has shown he's far more adept at defending the pass than London, and they're generally both excellent run stoppers. I would say this shows that Takeo is a "better" player than London.

On the other hand, he looked pretty good his first 6-8 games here and then fizzled. Let's wait until the end of the season to evaluate Drew because we all know what happens to him every November.

Someone above said you should quit posting for the night. You really should, because this is embarassing for you. I hope you're drunk. Okay, first, you can't argue that the sentence "The Steelers are a better team than the Bills" is a fact. It isn't. It's an opinion. This isn't arguable. Saying "the Steelers had more wins than the Bills last year" is a fact. Saying they're a "better" team is an opinion. This is something you learn in grade school English classes, for god's sake. Also, you clearly missed the rebuttal I was talking about. I read and responded to your lame "who led the defense in total tackles?" rebuttal. But since you're incapable of re-checking the thread before you spout off nonsense, I'll even go through the trouble of re-posting my rebuttal. Because that obviously is the only determing factor in a player's worth. Fletcher may have had more total tackles (although Takeo was second), but he is not nearly the overall player that Takeo is. Nevermind that last year Takeo was second on the team in interceptions with 5 and two of them were for touchdowns. London didn't have any interceptions. Fletcher is fine against the run but is a liability in the passing game. Takeo (as evidenced with his 5 interceptions) is not only good against the pass, but (as evidenced with his 96 tackles) is also fine against the run. This is all completely ignoring the energy and heart that Takeo brings to the team, too, which is incalcuable. Try a better argument next time, genius, because I can be just as big of an ass as you can. NEXT.