PolishDave

Hey dude....we all go through that here. This is the nature of internet forums. It is much harder to get your point across properly in writing than it would be if you talked face to face with somebody. It is easy to misunderstand what someone is trying to say and it is easy to be misunderstood yourself. I hate when that happens too. Sometimes I see people type things on here that make me want to slap them. And then I realize that I probably have typed things in here that make people want to slap me. Its all good man. It is a forum. This is how they are. So I think I will join you in having a beer too. But I'm having a shot of Krupnik to go with it.

I don't think that is saying much about Henne. Why would you want to add another quarterback to this roster who was not at least as good as EJ Manuel? I am not as high on EJ or optimistic about him as most people probably are on this board. Yet, I am convinced EJ is already a better quarterback than Chad Henne. So adding Chad to this roster would be a major waste in my opinion. And God help us if Henne had to start for any reason. My main opinion of Henne is based on the way I have seen him play in games. But his stats going back for years pretty much back up my take on him I think. Just look back a few years and see where he ranks consistently. It is scary. Consistently near the bottom year after year. This is why teams don't want to keep him. http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr

Dude... I think you misunderstood mrags' take on the topic. Like totally misunderstood him..

I have several problems with Henne: 1) He is not legitimate competition as a starting quarterback in my opinion any more than Kolb is/was 2) There is a real chance that he would get to play if he came to Buffalo even if he is a backup - that scares me 3) I think he really, really, really sucks. Did I emphasize the word "really" enough? Yes it is just my opinion. I have not doubt that some people like him although I will not understand why. Wait...one more thing.... If we could somehow clone Henne and make him the starting quarterback of every team in the AFC East except the Bills, I have no doubt Buffalo would win the division next year. No doubt at all. And I feel that way no matter which one of the current quarterbacks on the Bills roster would be our quarterback for the season.

Sticks finger down throat and pukes........ Please God no......please....no.....just no.... pukes again....

If you read his post again I think you will see that he is talking about crowd "noise" not attendance, not season ticket sales or anything else. And sorry, I should not have accused you of being a troll. It just felt that way based on your argument. I retract the troll statement.

@Vegas55 - It seems to me that you are just being a troll and arguing for the sake of arguing because you like to argue = troll Maybe not, but that is certainly how it seems based on your argument. Two more opinions I would like to make: 1) Game attendance numbers as a ratio of size to market are very good. It's not even worth arguing. 2) If you attend some away games at other stadiums, you will soon come to the obvious conclusion that Bills fans are way more "into" the football game than the fans of other teams in those other teams' home games. I say this based on my own experience of attending Bills away games. I am sure there are some stadiums that rock as hard as the Ralph does, but I have never been to one. The fans here are more active, alive and emotionally invested in a completely meaningless home game in Buffalo than they are in any other city I have ever seen a game in. In fact, it is not even close. Seriously....not even close....Buffalo seems to have a abnormally high percentage of absolutely rabid fans.

Dude....Now you are making me feel old. Everything you just said to that dude was like total Greek to me.......lol.....seriously.....like what the? Dammit...dammit....dammit......I am old.

I think you are confusing correlation with causation. An increase in Canadian fans attending Bills games is not necessarily a direct result of what you think. You should read a book or listen to the audio book version of something called Freakonomics. There are other reasons that more people come to the games here besides what you "think" or "assume" the reasons are. For example, have you also noticed that there is like a record number of cars with Canadian license plates at the Galleria Mall now compared to ever before? Is that because the Galleria Mall is successfully advertising in Canada? It has a lot to do with economics and other factors too. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the Canadian Dollar goes a long ways here compared to how it used to. If the games at Rogers' Center were filled with Canadian Bills fans then I would be inclined to agree with your line of thinking. But they aren't. Even Canadian Bills fans don't go to the Rogers' Center games in great enough numbers to suggest that this is what is increasing the Canadian fan base. Canadian Bills fans want to come to the states to watch a game. It has very little to do with the game at the Rogers' Center if you ask me. The Bills know this. They likely have an economist on staff. Heck maybe Russ studied it. Or maybe I am totally wrong? It is just an opinion.

I miss the days of having Wade coach and having punt catchers. Wait......we still have a punt catcher......

My short answer.............NO Wait, if you are trading with Houston.....Yes....Otherwise No.

I agree. Every single Canadian fan I have chatted with at any of the games (which is more than you would think) has said they much rather come to a game at the Ralph. They round up the boys and its like a get out of town trip for them. They loving coming down here to party as it feels like a one day vacation for them. I totally get it too. I like going to Niagara Falls Ontario for much of the same reason. It feels like a mini-getaway of sorts where you are taking a really short vacation. Who doesn't love that? This Toronto series will end sooner or later (probably sooner). And I believe the Bills front office will use it as a Public Relations stunt to the best of their ability (which is also pretty darn good). If I'm Russ Brandon, I focus on marketing the Bills game day experience as a one day getaway for Canadians who need a break. I would also focus on expanding the Buffalo fan base more to the eastern part of NY State rather than trying to go farther north.

Hey Greg, Go do that slam dunk thing at a Raiders game. I dare ya. You probably get shot or stabbed....lol.. That stadium lot is full of alpha males drinking. You don'g go up to guys like that and insult them or shove them or try to embarrass them or humiliate them in some way without expecting repercussions. Would you walk into a bar, walk up to a guy and shove him so he spills his beer? What do you think would happen dude? Get real. The problem lies with the instigators, not with some guy who gets mad that you shoved him. C'mon man....

Unless the Bills are going to go after a quarterback, I think it is pointless to trade up at all. In fact, depending on what happens in free agency and whether or not they keep Byrd or intend to keep Stevie Johnson or maybe some other big name player on this team, then maybe they end up trading down again for extra picks. I can totally see them doing that. Heck if they were likely to draft as well in the second round as they did this past year, I would have no problem with them trading away that first round pick altogether. Again, that assumes they don't want a new quarterback, which I think is probably the case.

Notice they did it when it was one or two fans and not a big group of guys.....gee wonder why? Those are not the type of people I would want to tailgate with or party with in general......not funny.....lame...

Bamma imploded at the end. QB didn't look particularly impressive to me. Looked decent, not special in my opinion.

I think this is a common problem on forums in general, not necessarily just this one. The mods just don't realize the impression they have on someone new. I chatted with a couple of moderators here regarding some things they thought were questionable and I thought they handled it really well. So maybe it depends on the person or the day or maybe they have just gotten better at it over time.

Do you hang out at Smitty's Amber Lantern and get hammered with rednecks on weekends? Have you and your buddies ever spent a night bullhead fishing at Silver lake with a couple of five gallon buckets filled with canned beer? Have you or anyone in your family tried to see how fast you could go on a child's tricycle if you pushed someone on it going down one of those bigass hills on 20A going into Warsaw? Have you ever got lost deer hunting in Warsaw and accidentally wandered into the little no mans land called "Dale" and wondered "WTF? Am I in the Twilight Zone?"

I understand your point and your thoughts about how important a punter is. One thing I probably disagree with you on based on your comments is how much "live" game time the coaches need to see to judge a punter. I don't think you need much "live" game time at all when it comes to evaluating punters. Yes live game punting gives you a slightly more accurate view of what the guy is going to be like under fire. But I don't think there is much difference between a punter under fire and a punter in practice. He can either control his punts or not. If he can do it in practice, then there is probably a 90% or better chance he can do it in a game. If he can't control it in practice, then live game time is essentially pointless. I am confident that the Bills explored all their options at punter throughout this year well before they brought Moorman back. Remember that they had been looking for a punter all year even before the season began. There is little doubt in my mind that the Bills had vetted pretty much every possible punter out there and were happy as hell that they could get Brian Moorman back knowing full well what his faults were.

@BackInDaDay - Convincing argument dude...... I am willing to give more slack to office personnel and coaches than I am to players though. I like decisive coaching like Marrone has shown when it comes to players (at least a few times) and there is little to argue with that happened in the last draft. So maybe, just maybe this staff will stick long enough and produce well enough to be worthy of sticking. Personally I thought Chan Gailey had settled in quite nicely and was going to build a winning team. I fear it might have taken him too long though based on the way the defense regressed during his last year. I get your point and I think you make a good one.

Good ideas. I really didn't want to award a team for gaining yards though. The goal with the system was to award a defense points for stopping or minimizing the opposing offense from scoring And to award an offense for scoring. The whole point in adding in the before or after 50 yard line thing was to give additional points for an offense that scores on a longer drive and also to give more points to a defense who stops a drive that started with a short field. That was the only reason. If a defense stops the opponent from scoring when the opponent started within 50 yards of the end zone, well then that feat deserves a little more credit than if the defense stopped a drive that had to go more than 50 yards. Get me? And yes I realize it is not perfect. I just felt like I had to draw the line somewhere. If you award points for first downs then it skews the results I am trying to achieve. It skews them because who cares how many yards a team moves the ball really. All that matters on offense is whether or not you score. All that matters on defense is whether or not you stop scores. Hope that makes sense.

No. I am going to patent the idea and the sell it to sports book in Las Vegas......lol...

Yeah that DVOA is interesting and far more advanced, but it measures more play by play rather than total drive statistics. Right? I thought about that. But the turnovers are accounted for in the scoring of the defense. The defense gets points for making the play. The offense gets zero points on that drive because they didn't execute on it properly. I guess you could take points away from an offense for a turnover too. I am kind of torn on the idea. It might make sense your way. I gotcha. Yes there are other stats that are worth measuring besides these and other things to consider. Just thought this was a more efficient way of looking at how each unit executes on each drive in the game. Drive outcomes in the last 5 minutes of each game are dropped for the reason you stated. This analysis is more for determining things like power rankings for how good an offense is or how good a defense is compared to other teams in the league.

I don't understand what you mean here. Could you clarify please?

I propose a new rating scale to measure how good a unit is. Here is how I propose it should work. It would be a points based scale. Points are awarded based on where a drive begins on the field and the results of those drives. All points stop accumulating once you reach 5 minutes left in the game because too many game plan decisions are severely altered based on the score at that point in the game which ultimately skews the stats for that game. Defense Scale Drive ends in turnover returned for touchdown = 6 points Drive ends in safety = 5 points Drive ends in turnover or turnover on downs = 4 points Offense starts drive on their own side of 50 and is forced to punt = 2 points Offense starts drive on your side of 50 and is forced to punt = 3 points Offense starts drive on your side of 50 and attempts field goal = 1 point Bonus 1 point for causing offense to go 3 and out. Bonus ½ point for a tackle resulting in 1 yard loss or more (includes sacks). Offense Scale Drive starts own side of 50 and ends in touchdown = 4 points Drive starts opponents side of 50 and ends in touchdown = 3 points Drive starts own side of 50 and ends in field goal attempt= 2 points Drive starts opponents side of 50 and ends in field goal attempt = 1 point Bonus point for converting 4th down into first down= 1 point I view football games as a series of small battles from drive to drive depending on where the possession begins and whether the possession ended in points, punts or turnovers. My biggest beef with the stats that normally get measured in a game is that they don’t tell the story about what happened during each drive. And whether or not a team really did well on any given drive is really more relevant to where that drive started from. Isn't it? I think there should be a better system in place for measuring how good an offense really is and how good a defense really is. I think a system similar to this would provide a better frame of reference for just how good a unit is. I think it would be much improved over measuring things like total yards passing, total yards rushing, etc. Wouldn't a system similar to this be a better way for comparing how good one defensive unit is compared to another team’s and how good one offensive unit is compared to another team’s?