DCgirl

Although in his draft bio, one of the negatives was his "run first" mentality. Hopefully, that can be coached out of him. For the most important reason, he's going to get injured if he runs a lot. I think it is a good idea to see what Losman can do. It sucks because I did want to make the playoffs next year and that is unlikely with a rookie QB (esp. one as raw as J.P.) but in the longterm, it is probably the right decision.

I feel the same way. But not about the fans. They are obnoxious.

I agree - Pioli is more important than the coordinators, I think. I wish some team would swipe him. I really, really hope that losing both coordinators will hurt the Pats but then again - I thought all the offensive line injuries would hurt the Pats last year and I thought not having a secondary or Seymour would hurt them this year. If the Pats go 12-4 or better next year, is there any doubt they are winning another Super Bowl?

I have a feeling this one's going to be a blowout. The first Pats SB win - they were barely winning along the way and squeaked one out against a better team. Last year - despite being 14-2, they were not dominating teams and squeaked out another win. This year, they have dominated a number of games and the playoffs. They will win the Super Bowl in a blowout (i.e. 14 points or more).

I completely agree with that statement. Belicheck was with Parcells with the Giants (and it was Belicheck's D that slowed down our offense), he was with him with the Pats in their 1st Super Bowl, he was with him with the Jets and their rebuilding. Now is the first time Parcells has been without Belicheck. It will be interesting to see what he is able to do with the Cowboys on his own.

I always root for the AFC in the Super Bowl but I know what you mean - I hate a lot more AFC teams than NFC. I mean of the last 4 AFC teams - I hated 3 of them (Steelers, Jets and Pats). But despite that, I feel I have to root for the AFC in every Super Bowl. Besides the NFC was such a punk conference this year - it would suck to have them win the Super Bowl when they had 8-8 teams getting into the playoffs and we were sitting at home at 9-7.

I agree. I hate Tom Brady but I started admitting long ago that he is a great QB. But clearly, the most important person for the Pats is Belicheck. Brady looks like the best QB in the NFL because he never has to play against Belicheck's D. Isn't it funny (in a sad way) that every team questions their QB after playing the Pats? I mean I know Belicheck owns Bledsoe and Manning, but which QB does he NOT own?

I don't think it works - I've tried that before but you have to actually want the Pats to win, not just pretend to want them to win. I'm not saying that I'm rooting FOR the Pats - I am merely rooting against the NFC (the clearly weaker conference). My hope is that next year - without Crennel and Weiss, the Pats will come down to earth a little. But I doubt it as long as they have Bellicheck. The most ridiculous stat for me was the fact that Bellicheck is 14-0 when facing a QB for the 2nd time in the same season. He is clearly the best coach in the league by far. All these years I thought Parcells outcoached Levy in the Bills first Super Bowl and it was Bellicheck.

Yes - I despise New England - but it seems inevitable that they will win their 3rd in 4 years. I always root against the NFC in the Super Bowl and will be doing so again this year despite the fact that it will be the Pats. Besides - it's exhausting to root against the Pats...you always end up disappointed.

Are you serious? Everyone knows the Pats are the ideal. They won 2 of the past 3 Super Bowls. It's inevitable (in my mind) that they win their 3rd and officially become a dynasty. Why would you hope for that? I want the Colts to win it all. Or at least beat the Pats. That way the Pats fans can stop trying to argue that Brady should get the MVP over Manning. Second choice is the Chargers - love that whole last to first angle (and I like Flutie and Rivers). Would be nice to see Marty finally get one too. Otherwise - I root for the AFC generally in every Super Bowl to make up for the 90's when the NFC dominated (and our Bills contributed to the domination).

I watched just the final quarter last night and I was really impressed by Manning. Combined with his stats against the Steelers (the Giants actually played the Steelers' starters and not their 3rd and 4th stringers), I think he has improved immensely. I was in favor of keeping Bledsoe as the starter if he continued to manage the game effectively. However, he has shown that against any top defense (Ravens, Pats, Steelers scrubs) he is prone to turnovers which kill. I can't see us doing more than 8-8 or 9-7 with Bledsoe at the helm (also considering we have 2 automatic losses when Bledsoe plays the Pats). It appears that with Palmer and Eli - it took about half the season for things to start to click. With Losman, he has the added benefit of having a top 2 defense to play with. I would still like to shore up the O-line in the offseason but I think we should go ahead and see what Losman looks like next year. I know that potentially puts the playoffs another year away but I would prefer that over another near miss with Bledsoe.

Also I learned from a Steelers fan that it is next to impossible to get tickets to their home games, so lots of them buy tickets to away games. Also I would guess a TON of those tickets were sold early in the season when the Steelers were on a roll and the Bills...not so much.

Prisco rarely has anything intelligent to say. I still read his rankings but I don't know why since ESPN's rankings are much more credible. What made me angrier than this time when he dropped the Bills after they beat the 49'ers was when we went to Seattle and walloped them at home and he still kept the Seahawks above us in the rankings.

I'm also worried that some on this board may be overconfident and that we may not be as good as some people think but I don't think that's a reason to put in Losman at this point (or to make him the starter next year). I'm not saying Losman is not going to be great - I really hope he is. But I think as long as Bledsoe is managing the game and we are winning - it's a bad idea to mess that up by throwing in an unproven rookie.

Is there any doubt that Travis Brown won't be a Bill again next year? The Bills keep "breaking up" with him and then taking him back. Seriously though - I hope that before we turn the reigns over to Losman, we get a solid backup. Drew has been an extremely durable quarterback (much like Peyton, Favre, etc.) so I've never been too worried about a backup. But we can't assume Losman will be as durable. (I hope he is but he is a scrambler and scramblers seem to get hurt more often.)

I think in that scenario - the Bills would go to Pittsburgh because they are the lower seed (#5 v. Colts #3). So the Colts actually play the Pats and we play Pittsburgh. We basically are locked into Pittsburgh in the 2nd round if we win because we will be the lower seed in almost any scenario (unless we are #5 and the #6 seed also wins).

This would be my ideal as well. We need both the Jets and Denver to lose for this to happen. This is my ideal because then we can face the Chargers (beatable), then the Steelers (a good matchup for us) and then hopefully the Colts will knock off the Pats (they almost did in the first game of the year except for Edge's fumbles) and we can play the Colts in the AFC Championship game. That's my dream playoff scenario. I'm not afraid of anyone in the NFC (including the TO-less Eagles).

Not to be a negative nancy - but how in the world can you think we have a chance at NE? We have never even come close to beating the Pats at their house while coached by Belicheck. Let's look at our last 3 games... Lost 6-29 (actually seemed worse than that) Lost 0-31 (could have been worse but Belicheck wanted to tie score exactly) Lost 17-27 (don't actually remember this game - just remember the fact that we did not know what screen passes were) My dream would be for us to be the #5 seed and playoff the Chargers. Then play the Steelers - have the Colts knock off the Pats and then play the Colts. I just can't imagine how we can beat the Pats when Belicheck owns Drew.

To be fair - it's because the Steelers dominated the Pats and the Eagles. I know we can only play the teams on our schedule but when we played the Pats (the last elite team on our schedule until now) - we got annihilated. People may like to say we are a totally different team now but remember, before that game, we had demolished Arizona and beat the Jets soundly. So I agree we are improved from the team that barely lost to the Jags in the beginning of the year. But we can't say beating up on bad teams proves we are now an elite team. I hope we are getting there but just pointing out common teams that the Steelers struggled against proves nothing. In fact, New England struggled against Arizona, we killed Arizona and then the Pats killed us. So it doesn't really prove anything until we play an elite team full strength. Which we will hopefully have the chance to do in the playoffs.

I don't know if I ever "gave up" on the Bills. My expectation before the season began was that we would be an 8-8 or 9-7 team and not make the playoffs. (Figured Mularkey needed a year to "get his feet wet.") When we started off 0-4, I questioned my earlier expectation but then looked at the latter part of the schedule and still thought we had a good chance to finish 7-9 or 8-8. So I never gave up on the team but I also never thought we would seriously challenge for a playoff spot (until we beat the Bengals soundly and the chips began to fall into place.)

I'm starting to wonder if Pats fans DO have their own home. So they stick around your board as well, huh?

I think our defense is really good but we haven't yet faced an offense as potent as the Colts. We've actually been padding our defensive stats by playing horrendous teams like Cleveland, San Francisco, etc. Seattle is probably the best offensive team we've faced in the last 6 weeks and if their receivers hadn't dropped all those balls - we would have given up a lot of yards. I definitely think we are an improving team but it is hard to gauge how much we have improved. The shellacking by the Pats still is fresh in my mind despite our dominant play against the dregs of the NFL in recent weeks. I think the Bills have a chance to beat the Chargers but I can't see us staying with the Colts.

I know - it's bad enough that they put the Redskins on one of the channels but we aren't even on the same channel as the Redskins! I never understood why you can't have a game on the other channel at the same time as the Redskins.

My fault. Just trying to take my mind off next weekend. I'm really nervous. Not that we will lose but that Denver and the Jets will win

But that's because you have Belicheck. I know you won't admit it but there is no way that you think Brady and the Colts would have beaten Manning and the Patriots in last year's AFC championship game (assuming all other factors were the same - i.e. Harrison, Wayne and the others getting mugged.)