Dan

A-friggin-men!

I actually turned the game off at half time. How bad is that!?!

Listening and understanding are lost artforms. I also think that all too often people make up their mind before they know all the facts or see all the possibilities. Therefore, they get in a corner and make erroneous statments.

Do you throw one season... or even 2.. away; if that will allow your players to develop thereby giving you 5+ years of Super Bowl contention? Do you blow up your team every season, bringing in new guys and hoping to get lucky thereby giving you 1 year of Super Bowl contention? I think that's the basis of this arguement and at the root of starting or benching JP. For me, its an easy decision.

I'm in complete agreement. I might add though, if winning a Super Bowl was the criteria for measuring greatness, no Bill would ever be in the HOF nor considered great. You'd think that posters on a Bills' board would appreciate that more than just about any one. The one thing I will say though is that Manning, much like Elway, exemplifies exactly what makes football so great - its a team sport. As great as Manning may be, he'll never win a Super Bowl until they get a great team around him. One player can only take a team so far. That's why I like football so much, and that's why building through free agency is rarely a sure way to get to the Super Bowl.

What's that make Buffalo?

I agree with some, Sunday without the Bills is not the same. I spent the day finishing my master bedroom/bathroom renovation and watching snippets of the games in between. I did catch the final 4-5 minutes of the Colts/Broncs game. Basically, without the Bills, Sunday becomes just another day to get crap done. I alao agree with some, Peyton is a great QB. He's definitely one of the best - of all time, not just today. Anyone that doesn't think so is just confused. I've liked him since day one in the league and he continues to impress. Hopefully, the Colts win the Superbowl this year. Not only will it occur in a year when the Bills have zero shot of even making the playoffs, but perhaps it'll quiet some of the anti-Peytonites (although I doubt it).

I think that sums up a huge problem with our offense. First, we have a player on the field that does little to help the play; therefore, when he's on the field we're a man down. Second, he tips the play to the defense; therefore, its harder to be successful with that play. Take Shelton out and put another possible receiver out their (TE) and JP has another option if its a pass. If its a run, you still have a blocker. Essentially, you've just made the offense less predictable and put a player on the field that may actually contribute.

don't mean to single either of you out because you're not the first one's to do so, but i've noticed a disturbing trend lately. someone question's JP they automatically get flamed and labeled a JP hater 819553[/snapback] But this thread isn't about questioning JP... it's about benching him because he's the one reason why the team is throwing the entire season away. Big difference. There are many threads (and individual posts) that question JP and his play which are good and worthwhile. This, however, is not one of them.

So you want to put someone else in..who's not the answer, just to get another 2-3 wins?! What's the point of that? Wow, I'm sure Evans would be delighted to win those extra 2 games! Either way, he's not in the playoffs. You know what this entire thread is...

Why is Willis fair game, but Evans and Peters are hands off? It seems like if we're taking this approach you take whatever trades you can get. What if someone is offering us 2 picks for Evans or Peters? Seems like we should take that, then. I would consider both of them in the same class as Willis, good, but not great players.

In essence, I agree with you're arguement about the Patriots. However, there's one slight problem with this reasoning, at this point. The Patriots are a solid team with a strong core of players. Therefore, they can more easily bring in new guys and stay consistent. The Bills, on the other hand, have no core. Consequently, if we trade Willis , for example, and draft another RB; when would we draft the lineman, the TE, the LB, etc. We have simply have too many holes to let good solid players go yet. As I recall, the Patriots, as they were builing their Super Bowl teams, didn't let players go as easily. It's only been in recent years. They did, however, bring in good, solid players that just performed. Look at Antwain Smith, our no good RB, they bring him in and go get to the Super Bowl with him as the feature back, he wasn't great, but he was solid. So, if we really wanted to emulate the Patriots success, Willis is defintely someone you keep - at least until you have a solid QB, line and TE. Then you can think about a new RB. This was much of TD's problem. He drafted Travis - a good but not great back. But rather than address other issues in later drafts; he picks Willis. He has Drew, a good but not great QB, so he fradt JP. He trades Peerless and drafts Parish. In other words he was spinning his wheels - not building but simply replacing one good player with another good player. So I say, lets not go after flash, lets keep the good players we have and try to draft and sign new players to replace the bad ones on the line, etc. first. We can worry about Willis and his attitude in a few years.

For the season opener, I was in Harrisburg, PA. So, I had to watch the game in a sports bar downtown. Just as the game is about to start, of all things, a guy comes in with a Coy Wire jersey on. I almost choked on my beer. Anyhow, that's what I remeber thinking at the time..... I think I just found the world's last Coy Wire fan hiding out in a bar in Harrisburg, PA.

He seems to do well when given the chance. He certainly showed some skills on thaty one big catch. I know we need TEs in to help block, but I also think he could be a decent passing threat for us. I think we definitely need to get him more involved in the game - other than just blocking.

I completely agree with you, but just about every young QB has these same problems. In addition, he doesn't see open receivers all the time either. Usually, with playing time, the game starts to slow down and all these problems disappear. I'm hopeful that with playing time, that is what we'll also see with JP. I am optimistic having seen the improvement in his play from last year to this year.

I was thinking the same thing while reading that article. It's good to see him own up to his share of the blame. I think it also shows a certain amount of confidence in him that his job as starter isn't in jeapardy. It's also the type of thing that a team leader does; he takes the heat and stands up for his teammates. All good things to see from in the progression of a young QB.

If Peters does Pan out and become a sold tackle, at some point he'll stop just being happy to be playing and start wanting to get what he thinks he deserves. Its only human nature. So, I think we'd have to consider giving him a raise at some point. It'd be a recipe for disgruntlement if we have a Guard (supposedly a lesser paid position) making much more than the Tackle (supposedly the higher paid position).

Which baffles me. I know you want to run inside, but it seems to me Willis is far more successful running to the outside. Why don't they mix it up more, perhaps even favoring outside runs? For that matter screens seem like a good idea to slow a pass rush down too, why not more of those? Or play action? Man the play calling sucks.

Do I really have to go back and quote all the posts that talked about how easily we could replace him or which backs we'd be better off with? Now, perhaps the words "cut him" weren'tactually written, but they were certainly implied.

This post is definitely an example of idiocy in its purest form. We have the running back with the 5th most rushing yards in the league (you'd think a bright spot in an otherwise dismal few game stretch) and people actually want him cut from the team. And what truely makes this idiocy at its finest... the 2 "bad" plays being used as an example of is why he needs to go... are an 8 yard 1st down run and a 56 yard shovel pass. Brilliant! And this... is exactly why I read posts on this board. You can't make this kinda lunacy up.

Didn't he scramble for a touchdown late in the Jets game on 4th and 6 from the 12 yard line to pull us to within a score? I think that'd classify as field awareness. One example - good enough.

We all have man love for Leinart. He is, afterall, the greatest QB in the game today and will lead the Cardinals to a SuperBowl win for the next 10 years.

Exactly. and right or wrong.... it's effort. And I applaud any effort to fix the mess. Mistakes are excusable, inaction is not.

I completely agree. And what I like most about it... 1) It shows the coaches aren't happy with what they're seeing either and they're not afraid to do something about it. 2) It shows they realize that although JO hasn't been playing well, they understand that putting all the problems on one scapegoat isn't the solution and you can't just plug in a new QB and solve the offensive problems. Now, hopefully they'll do something about that Cover-Who defense.

Well, we can certainly get worse. As bad as our line play has been, I still think its better than last year's. However, does it matter if it gets worse? In other words, what's the difference in finishing as we are and having a 5-6 win season; or making the changes (having it blow up) and getting worse and we have a 3-4 win season? On the flip side, the moves could play out and give us less need to draft a LT and we could still finish with 5-6 wins. Definitely a plus in my book.