Chuck Schick

How quickly we all forget. This franchise was FAR more dysfunctional just 5 or so years ago than they are now. The way we hired GMs and coaches...pathetic. How we drafted players and signed free agent talent...equally pathetic. I'm not saying we are now a Super Bowl contender, but to not recognize an improvement in the system (call it culture if you like) is crazy.

Great thread, and just what I needed after another sleepless Sunday night. Stepping away from the "Same old Bills" routine, there really are some things to like about the team and organization. Most of them have been mentioned earlier, but I will add: it takes time and some trial/error to go from one of the worst-performing franchises, to an average one, and then (hopefully) a good one. We all hoped that we could skip over that middle step, but in reality we are probably at the exact place we should be: a very difficult opponent but with enough flaws to keep from being a legitimate contender. I think cooler heads prevail and we continue to get better and more consistent.

Crazy how anybody that limps off the field at this point in the season ends up on IR a couple of days later.

What in the world does "getting hit in the head is part of the game <of football>" have to do with anything, when in all those other sports, kids often get hit in the head? The numbers I've see show concussion rates in HS football as 11.2 per 10,000 athletic exposures. Lacrosse comes in at 6.9 and girls soccer at 6.7. Apparently there's data showing ice hockey and wrestling may be higher than lax, but I didn't see anything backing that up. I also think an argument can be made that "athletic exposures" in football are now drastically lower since rarely do coaches have players do full-speed live hitting any more. Games are once a week and there are far fewer games in a football season than other sports. So theoretically, even though the rate of concussions may be higher, the occurrences can be lower than other sports due to the fewer exposures. (I'm only talking about youth sports here, not the NFL).

To stick with your cancer analogy, playing soccer or lacrosse rather than football would be like chewing Copenhagen instead of smoking Marlboros. Those sports may not quite have the concussion notoriety as football dies, but they are in the same neighborhood. All football needs is someone to either invent some type of helmet/harness/??? that will drastically reduce concussions and this will all be forgotten. There's way too much money on the line for it to just fade away.

Reading your posts, I think you may be one of the biggest hypocrites I've ever "met". With your beliefs, how can you, with any good conscience, watch and support the game of football? Hell, you're even a 4,000+ post guy on a football-only discussion board. So you think it's suicide to play the game and wouldn't think of having any loved ones play it, but you're more than happy to cheer on those who do play and probably don't know any better? Nice.

Good point. He kind of reminds me of Antowaine Smith (I'm probably butchering it but I know it was spelled weird).. Tall and upright, but real good once he got some steam and leverage.

I love having Karlos and Shady. Something KW will hopefully improve on though is the short yardage situations. At least twice vs the Jets, he ended up kind of falling backwards at the line of scrimmage and not getting the yard or 2 we needed. Maybe concern about another concussion?

You make some good points. As the game got out of control in the 3rd quarter, and then thinking about it afterward, it was easy to blast the D. But those early 3-and-outs really screwed us. Turnovers are more drastic and easy to focus on their damage, but the 3 -and- outs just gave a good Bengals offense too much rope to hang us with.

Was Goodwin a complete disaster or what? Wow

When Tasker started getting regular reps at WR, that marked the beginning of the end in terms of the Bills having top-flight talent. Excellent football player and not horrible at WR by any means, but no way someone to rely on offensively.

Colts game was in Tenn yesterday.... And have we learned nothing other than Indy ALWAYS ends up 11-5 and in the play-offs?

I look at their offseason moves more as " What the hell.....lets go for it!" vs. having glaring holes to plug. The Harvin signing in particular.

Valid concerns, but I would say our last few drafts have been as good as anybody's. Moving forward I feel good about it, too. As tricky as playing the FA game is, we can't avoid it in today's NFL. Having Pegula around is a very nice luxury.

This is an example of why it's extremely rare to get an out-and-out steal in the draft. You have to cross your fingers and hope some of the imperfections that scared other teams away can be overcome. (Vontaze Burfict = yes; Johnny Football = no (so far).

Nice!

That's what I'm thinking. This isn't high school football with 2 corners playing every down. I would bet we have 3+ CBs on the field more times than not. So this really isn't what I would consider a luxury pick like its being painted.

He did seem to get better over time. That said, he generally gave the impression that he was in over his head as an NFL GM. Not unusual for the Bills organization, pre-Pegula.

If comparing the potential 2015 team to last year's, McCoy is a lot more than a "slight plus" over Kiko. Alonso didn't play a down. And keeping a UFA as good as Hughes deserves a little more credit than you're giving.

That was my first thought too. That was a scary .5 of a second.

That's not a bad idea.

I agree. They look great on a nice sunny day at the Ralph, too. What shade of blue would you call it that they use? It's really unique compared to all the other teams'.

Even if you accept the comparisons you make, what is the point? Marrone left. Of all the candidates for the job with previous HC experience, tell me which one DIDNT have similarly sub-par seasons at the end?

If you look back on their season, the Jets were actually a lot more competitive than we probably think. They only got blown out three times- twice by us- and came damn close to beating the Pats twice, the Broncos, and the Packers. In 2013 it was a downright miracle that they went 8-8, according to preseason analysis. I don't have an answer to how they handled their QBs, but I kind of lean toward giving them a pass since they were both pretty bad.

Not exactly... I would rather it be 2nd and goal (or whatever down) from the 1 foot line-which is basically what is being gained by stretching it away from your body- rather than a turnover. I would also hazard to say that 99% of the time a guy who scores while stretching it out would have done so just keeping it tucked.