AKC

I thought it was JP's best game as a Bill. He actually moved up in the pocket to convert a third down, something I've been waiting for him to do since he arrived in Buffalo. He acknowledges he bailed on his linemen on the Moulds toss. He's been the cause of maybe half the pass pressure since he retook the job from Holcomb, a guy who's only saving grace is he virtually never bails out of the pocket. JP's major handicap is his reliance on on his feet and the discouraging effect that has on his linemen when they've done everything by the book to provide him a spot to throw from simply to see JP slide out and into the grasp of a guy they've kept out of the play. If he calms down and allows the game to come to him instead of trying to do too much he'll find far more success in a shorter period of time.

A fine trip outside of that 3 hours on Sunday! Great to meet you and your girl on Friday, plus The Dean on Saturday. Seems like football was the only thing getting in the way of a perfect weekend.

Since the vast majority of them have actually only been "Pat's fans" for some fraction of that 4 year period there's legitimate concerns about how they'll deal with the 75 year dry spell they're entering. Psychotropics and Antidepressants would be one way to start. The obvious choice for them all though is to do exactly the same thing they did from 2001-2004 and buy themselves a full complement of Bengal's gear!

I'll do a bit more diligence to this if I get a chance, but in watching some of the first half again last night the vast majority of the pass play calling by San Diego were 5 and 7 step drops with the primary look being at deeper patterns. Out of the first maybe 18 pass plays there were only 3 designed "short passes" (and those three were thrown on consecutive downs) that included a WR screen, a 3 step WR flat pass and a 3 step slant to their TE, otherwise EVERY play was more along the lines of their very first pass play; a 7 step drop with a 45 yard throw on a deep post. I'm beginning to wonder if, outside of his career best game against us this season, the Pats are beginning to think they misjudged Wilfork's ability.

Is my memory clouded or were we not in recent times one of the best D's at making adjustments on the fly? This season we just get worse as the game goes on. I'm with you Eric as far as it being the personnel. We have 6 guys who could find a starting role on a top NFL defense, and then we have our interior line and another guy named after something that requires fertilizer. I was hoping we'd learned our lesson about that the first time it happened ;-)

Interesting that you would suggest this, so I checked it out. We'll ignore for the time being his title and sig line that you agree are insults the Bills- let me give you a breakdown in his 1660 posts of his "contributions"- He's got a handful of PPP posts that are of no consequence He has about 550 post proclaiming Bill Belichick to be god with no forces that can keep him from winning (even injuries ;-) plus his obilgatory anti-Bledsoe garbage. The balance of his 1100 posts are repetitive proclamations that we as Bills fans simply don't understand that Tom Brady is the best QB who has ever sniffed another man's jockstrap. The odd thing is he hasn't been very succesful influencing anyone here since as the poll that begins this string indicates merely among the QBs we've played this year Bill's fans clearly aren't convinced that Brady is even the best QB we've played in 2005. So his contributions frantically waving a Brady flag around here wherein his infallible object of desire is god. A record of contributions? Perhaps- on a par with the "contributions" of Lawrence Phillips to the Denver Broncos.

We've had to many good contributors from other teams in here talking football without insulting the team to simply ignore some jackass with a derogatory name while he runs around making the disingenuous claim that it's an "inside joke". Rules are made for those with no respect for others, manners are made for those that do. I'm inappreciative of his lack of the latter.

Who're you trying to convince? You've found 2 Bills fans out of a membership list numbering over 5000 who don't recognize that "Hollywood Donahoe" is an insult to our GM and that your sig line is an insult to a former Bill. The great balance of those here recognize that you're an ingracious pile of garbage in our house. Enjoy your spot on the social scale, it's quite befitting of the Patsy fan base ;-)

If I come to dinner at your house, as your guest, and wear an apron that says "Your Wife's Cooking Sucks", I won't expect to be treated very well nor will I expect to be invited back. In fact if she doesn't spit in my food you need to have a talk with her. If someone comes into a Bill's home and choose the derogatory name "Hollywood Donahoe" I'll choose to treat him the way he has asked to be treated- like an ass. The reason "trolls" exist is to try to find wedge issues and promote that among the other fan base. This guy is the classic troll- looking to put a split between a couple of Bills fans like you and I who like to talk about football, and doing it by IMO fooling you into accepting his repetitive, disingenuous and transparent insult to our GM. And his insistence on continued use of the offensive title is once again IMO clear evidence of his jackass purpose for being here. If you go to anyone else's house and make some verbal error that you later realize can clearly be taken offensively, any mannered guest immediately drops the use of the offensive language, even if it only offends 25 of the 30 people at the table.

We were without doubt an overated D last season, but I don't know if I'd put as much blame on the declining skills of our run package DTs. PW surely didn't get teh penetration he had shown in I believe his 2nd and 3rd seasons, but his role had evolved to really playing run downs and leaving fdor REdwards. Since as of last year Big Sam was still playing the penetrating role in run D, PW was playing mostly a 3 technique that required he NOT charge the backfield. Even this said, and with his far more limited plays, he still had 2.5 sacks for the season, the second best in his career and for more sack yardage than at any point in his career. I think the best question about our defense for the past few seasons is whether Gray is a guy who is calling a great game with lesser talent or a guy with the benefit of good talent but not great scheming. One thing I'm sure of is that along the DLine he has one of the- maybe the- worst groups of interior DLine "talent" in the league.

I won't ask you to recognize when someone's blowing smoke up your ass as this douchebag obviously is. In return I'll simply ask you not to interfere with me defending members of our Bill's family against dishonest sack of garbage trolls.

Isn't it funny that without a dominating D the Pat's are hovering around the .500 mark? Isn't this the same team who just last year could "plug anyone into any spot", possesses the "best QB in the history of the game" and the "greatest coach ever", yet wouldn't even be in the hunt for a playoff spot in the other AFC divisions? What they've become is the "excuses" team and Brady the "excuses" QB. It's hard to imagine anyone who watched Drew Brees play yesterday doesn't believe Brees would have done the same thing with the NE D's of the recent past.

Nice try Mr. Disingenuous! Your name is a swipe at our team. And that makes you a jackass since this is a Buffalo Bill's Message Board. Cry to someone else about how the obvious innuendo doesn't really mean anything- as hard as it is to imagine there's surely someone illucid to the point of not recognizing your shots at our team. The fact is that if I go to a Pat's board and title myself "Pioli's Lice Spray" I can scream and cry all I want, like you do here, that "it's just an inside joke", but the reality is that you've made a joke of our GM and I think you're an a-hole for it. So whine and cry all you want (while you send those "wink wink" PMs to the other Pat's trolls) but you don't fool anyone here with an ounce of intelligence.

Your name is a degradation of a member of our management. It's not for the "guest" to decide what kind of insults to throw at the host's family. And your disingenuousness is even futher evidenced by your scumbag sig line making further reference to the same member of the Bill's family. We've had well-mannered trolls on this board and they've never assumed some garbage personality like you have, taking shots at our people while crying like a baby about the "treatment" you get. But do come back regularly to remind us all of just how pathetic you and the bulk of your fan base really are.

You are true scum- you like to ignore that this is a Bill's Message Board. Were I as pathetic as you and couldn't find my opinions valuable in my own community I might try posting on a Patriot's board, but even then to be a full-on scumbag like you I'd have to take a name like "Paoli's Indigestion" and then incessantly rip on the management of your team while whining like a pansy that "they're not being nice to me". Without a doubt you are the single most disingenuous poster in the history of this community. You remind me of someone who wandered into someone else's Thanksgiving dinner after stepping in dog**** and wondering why all but the most incoherent people at the table are wondering who invited you!

Good to see the knuckle-suckers are still avoiding talking among their own fans and exposing their lack of grasp. Much easier to be a whining troll than to have well-mannered conversation among actual football fans!

With the common opponent being our defense, and considering their statistics against that common opponent, which of these players if the best we've seen so far this year?

3rd down defense isn't taking place in a vacuum, but what I suggested in the post is that focusing on the players who would seem to make a 3rd down D potent- CBs and DEs specifically- is losing site of the fact that the game is more frequently being lost on the first down where you ceded 5 or 6 yards, especially if that 5 or 6 yards came on the ground. Play all the great ball you want on thrid downs but if you're giving up enough to your opponent on 1st they'll either close the down set on 2nd or leave themselves in a 3rd and nothing that allows them to run virtually any play in their playbook. A team facing a 3rd and 8 is limited to some fraction of their playbook by the mere distance required for success. And the guys who help you leave a team on the long 2nd and third down plays are your rushing package DTs. Opening this season without a quality 2 gap DT was the problem. There's plenty of those who aren't named Pat Williams. Playing a great 1-technique guy on one side and a good 2 gap guy to the other draws the extra blockers that will otherwise be slowing down our DEs or extra rushers. The 1 technique player should be creating enough push to force the QB to stay back without stepping up into his throw. This is all that's necessary to give your DE's a real shot with regularity. Losing in the NFL ALWAYS has something to do with the defense. I'm glad you mention the Ravens- a perfect example. In 2000 they had the best D in football and carried the kind of offense contemplated in the original post. Their '04 defense isn't anywhere near as as good, and where it drops off the most is inside the interior of that DLine. No one is going to mistake Kelly Greg and Maake Kemoeatu for Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams, an interior duo who made the Ravens the #1 run stoppers in the NFL versus being 9 spots worse in 2005. In fact the thing that separates the 2000 from 2005 Ravens was their ability to stop opponents on first down and create undesirable down/distance series for their higher profile (but of less importance IMO) players to take advantage of on those long 2nds and 3rds.

True- there will be one home game for the inevitable lackey our division sends as a representative to the playoffs this year.

Ngata is considered a first round reach by a lot of the better draft agencies. Watson is the guy who overall gets the big ratings- playing side by side with Sam Adams it might become "difficult" for teams to take our interior for granted on first down. Watson Draft Profile Pressure on the edge becomes effective when there's pressure in the middle. With Bannderson on the field the opponent will keep their QB free of pressure using simply their interior OLine players, we add another quality tackle to play with a healthy SAdams and they'd be forced to bring one more blocker into the scheme or risk their QB backing out of the pocket and into our edge rushers.

One of my buddies is an FBI Agent proficient at "creating backgrounds", if you'd consider applying for a personnel job at OBD I'd apply all forces at my disposal to see that you get the job ;-)

The irony of the 2005 AFC East champ will be their Wild Card spanking by the Bengals in Cincinatti.

If you assume as our performances have suggested that we're the worst road team in the league you might be a bit less optimistic.

That's what makes the finger-pointing subjective- Donahoe has to shoulder a lot as the ultimate trigger-puller, but we have to assume he consults the coaching staff. To me the biggest crime was the failure to recognize that Ron Edwards was such a terrible fit for our rush defense- I'd love to know what Mularkey and Gray had to say about that decision, obviously the decision that in their minds made PWilliams expendable.

It's this simple: He was asking for more than he's worth to any team who has a two gap guy who can give you 20 plays on Sunday. We could have made it all work by signing a Keith Traylor type to play to Sam's side. The problem we had was the team assuming, contrary to every single play we've ever seen him involved in, that REdwards would be a good complement. Edwards is another 1-technique DT and that made him exactly the wrong guy to play off Sam's talent.