PolishDave

Dude, what is up with the tiny font? Even if you have something good to say, I am not going to squint to try to read your take.

Agreed. I am just overly paranoid about possibly getting Watkins injured. Remember how bad it sucked when Gilmore got hurt in preseason? Some guys are too risky with the reward being too little for that little bit of extra playing time. In my opinion Watkins and Woods fit that category.

Great article. I like his take on the Bills.

I think I would sit Fred Jackson, Spiller, Watkins & Woods. I would start the rest of the first string offense. I would sit the first string D. I would play EJ with those starters for 3 series or until they scored a TD, whichever is less. Then I would play Tuel for the rest of the first half with the same remaining starters on offense. 2nd half offense would be all Palmer. I would play the offensive line the whole first half I think unless they came out absolutely smashing Detroit right away at the line of scrimmage. If they did that, then I would sit all my starters earlier.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

The best we could hope for Brady Quinn is that some other team we have to play picks him up and plays him. That would be a predictable win for us (okay maybe - maybe not). He is not starter material in my opinion and I don't even think he is good backup material. If the Bills took him they would still need to keep looking to upgrade at backup. So why waste the time? No thanks. Cold weather nonsense is overrated anyway in my opinion.

You and Promo are right on about that. I have no doubt that he says a lot of what he says just to get under people's skin. He gets clicks like Rodak. That is his job. A lot of people used to listen to "The Coach" even though they absolutely hated him. A lot of people listen to Rush Limbaugh even though they absolutely hate him. It is the nature of the media business to stir up emotions. Newspapers and news television do the same thing. That is why people say the news is biased. The more emotions they stir up in people, the more addicted people become to listening to them. Yes, even when someone completely disagrees with them. They are mindfu**ing people at a primal level and people don't even realize it. The more people talk about him on forums like this one, the more he will get paid by his employer, even though 95% of the comments are negative against him.

I understand that you wouldn't want to show anything brand new that you intend to do in the regular season. But I don't think they completely scrap the playbook from year to year. There has to be a number of plays that they keep as part of the playbook. And running those plays (without any new tweaks or adjustments) reveals nothing new to the opponents they will be playing. After thinking about this dilemma more I have arrived at a new conclusion. Here it is... It must be that the coaches really only view preseason games as a pure "talent evaluation" tool and not as an actual practice. If they looked at preseason games as "practice" time then they would run legit plays even if those plays were some of the more generic plays in their playbooks. And if the coaches really do look at preseason games as nothing more than "talent evaluation tools" then they should come right out and say "Winning is irrelevant in preseason" Marrone came out and said that winning in preseason is the most important thing to him in each game. But that has to be Bull****. Because if winning those games really mattered to him or anyone else, then you don't approach the games the way they have. I remember Marv saying he didn't care whether they won or lost preseason and that he just used them to evaluate talent. Talent meaning individual player performance versus another opponent. And also checking on a player's basic technique at their position. I think our coaches are doing the same thing and using it as purely a talent evaluation. Nothing else makes sense to me.

Don't they already get all that info from last year's film though? All that is already on tape. No?

I can find some reasons to agree with the idea. Number one being that EJ needs the practice. But on the other hand, if you are going to play EJ a lot, then you have to play the other starters on offense a lot. Otherwise it isn't going to be a really good experience builder for EJ. And if you are going to play all the other starters a lot, then you are taking a major injury risk. So play him a few series until he gets a TD. Then pull the starters.

I understand that coaches don't want to show their hands to the teams they are going to be playing early in the upcoming season. That makes sense to me. But, let's assume for a minute that a lot of the plays you are going to be running this year are the same plays that you ran last year. Aren't they? If that is the case, then those upcoming teams already have plenty of film on the plays you run. So, if I am a coach, I am looking at last year's film assuming that those plays are mostly what I am going to see. Doesn't that make sense? And if that is the case, then why can't you at least go ahead and actually run the plays that you ran last year? I can see why you wouldn't want to reveal any new changes you intend to implement. But if a lot of the plays are the same as the previous year, what are you really giving away? Aren't you better off getting in that live practice for real plays in a live game environment? Do you get what I mean? I don't understand why they can't go ahead and run those plays. The other coaches already see them on film anyway. Please enlighten me.

Personally, I don't much care for his play calling. Example - I seems like he likes to throw a lot on 3rd and 1 or 3rd and 2. I run the ball there more times than not. I may run a draw out of shotgun, but I prefer to run there. I didn't like the call last year where Tuel was passing in that goalline situation where he threw that game altering interception. I blame Hacket for half the fault there. There are many times in many games where I was perplexed over the choice of plays. Run run pass punt. Run run pass punt. Stuff like that... Secondly I don't much care for his game planning. I don't think he designs his offense to fit the players' skills. I think he has an offense he insists on running and tries to get whatever players he has to fit into that scheme. In my mind, that is bad coaching. That is why I don't care for him. I say that based on last year's play not on this year's preseason. If the offense looks a lot better this year and moves the chains while mixing in some deep pass attempts, then I will be fine with him. Based on his first year, he is off to a bad start. We will know more by midway through this season.

lol...funny.....no road wins for hitler....well actually he went undefeated until he got defeated... hey....do you suppose there are some forums out there who argue and speculate about who might have won WWII if the teams had exchanged quarterbacks?

I am all for doing away with the current extra point "gimme". I don't much care if they institute the longer 1 point kick or go with something different. But I am totally sick of the standard too short to miss extra point kick. And I would like them to do something different with kickoffs too. It is so boring to watch them kick it out of the back of the endzone. Maybe they should spot it at the 30 if you kick it so far it goes out of the endzone. That would force more returns.

I wondered the same thing. I guess that tells you that Marrone and Whaley were not on the same page in bringing him in. Sounds like Whaley just went out and got him. Then said....Hey coach...here you go...gotcha another QB to toy around with.....you're welcome......lol...

Lots of good points made here. The Patriots are obviously very good in the scouting department and coaching You can tell that by the fact that they tend to get very good production out of lesser known guys. When you add in the fact that they have one of the all time great quarterbacks, it is no wonder that they are perennially good. Even though I hate the guy, I have to admit that Belichick is one of the best coaches in the NFL. He has had a number of different assistant coaches come and go. Yet they get good production pretty consistently. They are something to aspire to. Even with all that said though, they don't win the AFC east year after year without Brady. Brady is BY FAR the biggest difference maker in that team. Their defense gives up less points because opponents usually start with a long field.

Agreed. I long for the days when Kelly would throw a bomb on the very first play of the very first offense possession. I like it because it sets a tone for the game that says we are going to try to beat you deep. You have to think that helps open up the running game and forces the secondary to respect speedy receivers more. And if you complete one of those passes, you can steal the game's momentum for quite a while.

My guess is they make about half that (maybe a hair more than half). Radio talk show hosts aren't paid well unless they are in a big market or unless they have lots of endorsements. Those guys have neither.

I watched Quinn throughout his ND college years. He was never that impressive. I figured someone would draft him but I also had the distinct feeling he would not make it in the NFL. He just isn't that good. We don't need him. A Jeff Tuel that knows the playbook is far better than a Quinn who doesn't. In my opinion.

It seems to me that Morrone is realizing his team is not ready for the regular season to begin. That has to be especially frustrating considering they had that extra HOF game. And Whaley has repeatedly said that failure is unacceptable. So I think Marrone is getting squeezed a little tighter each day. It is possible he feels like he is starting to spiral into a really bad rut like a guy where everything is starting to go wrong at once. I don’t envy his position. Being a head coach in his situation probably sucks pretty friggin bad at the moment.

I didn’t mind the booing so much this time because it was a preseason game. But during the regular season, I shake my head when fans are booing their losing team. When you boo your losing team you are just driving another nail in your team’s coffin for that game. Booing during the game, before it is over, is not a way to help your team win. If you want them to turn it around you have to stop kicking the guy while he is down. When the regular season comes around and you actually care whether the team wins or loses, I think you would be wise to hold your boos till the end of the game.

We need more Ditka's in this world! I'd buy that guy a beer for speaking the truth.

Another advantage to buying this team is that this team would be the easiest to move to Toronto. Some of the fanbase would transfer up there, especially the existing fans from Ontario. And the other NFL owners would probably welcome moving a small market team like Buffalo to a much larger market - Toronto - Ontario. In fact, the team would become the defacto - "Canada's NFL team". I think the value of the team would increase very rapidly over its first ten years and would probably approach the valuations of some of the more valuable teams in the NFL. Maybe not as valuable as Dallas or The Patriots or Washington, but up towards that end of the spectrum. Those owners would make a killing.

True... I have met Bills season ticket holders from New England and from the Jets fanbase. They buy season tickets in Buffalo because they are so cheap. They sell the rest of the games for whatever they can get. Funny how someone would buy an entire batch of season tickets just so they can come to town for one game. I bet they don't lose much on the deal at all except maybe those end of season games that never sell out. And if the Bills ever make the playoffs, those tickets are money in the bank.

Some people think it is bias against Buffalo. But anytime I talk to a football fan from outside of Buffalo, they almost always think that Buffalo is an easy win. It doesn't matter what team you ask. And why shouldn't they think that? This team has had a losing record for so long it is a laughing stock to many people. I don't say that to put down my team. I love the Bills. But its true. I think people look at the Bills the way I used to look at Cincinnati for so many years. They perennially sucked. Now we are that team. God I hope it changes this year.