yungmack

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I love Lindell, and the guy in Baltimore was correct that he doesn't get the credit he deserves (but realistically, what kicker does?). But I think he's in decline. There were warning signs last season. Then in the pre-season I became "officially" concerned about him, posting that at the time. And he's only made me more concerned as the season has gone on, even missing an extra point. No, I'm not suggesting the Bills cut him, especially right now. But Buddy better put the search for his replacement at the top of his ever-growing To Do list.

Really nice interview. Thanks for the link. BTW, note that Moulds still lives in Buffalo part time. Many players continue to live here after their careers are over, which should give the lie to the "The Bills can't get good players because nobody wants to live in Buffalo." I know a guy from San Francisco, Cal Berkeley guy, total Californian. When his company transferred him to Buffalo, he was devastated. Yet when they wanted to move him to England a few years later, he quit rather than leave Buffalo. Go figure.

I think we're going to find out if Roosevelt is the real deal or not.

Among the things I like very much about Fitz is his willingness to put the ball into tight spots. It means your receivers have to know what they're doing and the QB trusting them to do it. It means you're going to get some knocked down and some intercepted. It's also what the best QBs do on a regular basis. No risk, no reward. I don't know if Fitzpatrick is the long-term answer at QB for the Bills but I support giving him the rest of the season before making any decision.

FWIW, Mike Mayock considers Luck the most NFL-ready QB in college.

Maybe we should have a Dead Horse Forum for all those who continue to belabor the obvious, like Kelsay sucks (AND is way overpaid), that McKelvin sucks (and is as dumb as a stalk of celery), that Whitner sucks, that George Edwards sucks, that Poz sucks, that Torbor sucks, that Maybin sucks, etc. Topics that qualify for the Dead Horse Forum are those that have been gnawed over endlessly AND ones that no one any longer bothers to make a sensible opposing argument.

Nix knows Merriman well. That the Bills are even considering Merriman, with his baggage and his declining health/ability says more about the dreadful LB corps the Bills have than anything else.

You, sir, are correct.

Whoa! That was a great post. One question: Do you have an opinion on Matt Barkley of USC?

I think we all know the big names out there so I'm more interested in who other than the Lucks, Lockers, etc you guys think should be in the discussion. I'd also like to know your opinions on guys likely to not come out until after the 2011 season.

Finally watched the NFL Replay version of the game and have to say that Howard looked pretty darn good, certainly a huge upgrade over Green. Overall, the O line looked very good all day long, not a small thing when playing the Ravens. Seems to me that if the defense was even moderately good, this would have been a win. One thing I noticed about the defense is that, though they gave up quite a bit of yards on the run plays, it was really the miserable pass coverage that killed them. Or, rather, the apparent lack of coverage. The secondary guys were often playing so far off the receivers that all they had to do was stop, turn and catch the ball time after time. I don't know if it was the abbreviated coverage of Replay, but it looked to me like the Bills were playing to tie rather than to win on the last drive of regulation. All in all, the Bills looked like a decent team for a change. Not great, but not an embarrassment either. I guess that's progress.

Thanks for the responses, which seem overwhelmingly to be that the kid did alright. From what's been said here, he's run Green out of his job. Not bad for an undrafted rookie.

I was unable to watch the game and was wondering how Howard did.

I believe he's still wearing a cast though a smaller one than before. Kinda tough to play his position with a broken thumb. I think they'll wait until after the bye week to play him.

I didn't mean to imply that you could get by with just a running game in today's NFL. But unless I completely misunderstood Gailey in the off season, I thought he was going to implement the "pistol offense" (which is the basic set UCLA uses). It made sense to me because the one truly strong area of the Bills offense was the RB corps. Also, similar to the Bills, the UCLA line was suspect, with key injuries as well. UCLA is not a very good team and my guess is the Bruins won't come anywhere near winning the PAC 10 this year. They just have too many weaknesses. But Neuheisel and Chow seem to understand that and so are stressing their strong points. It's not enough to catapult them into the top 10 but it is enough to enable them to win a few and to be entertaining while doing it. The Bills could do worse than follow UCLA's example (which was what Gailey early on hinted anyway).

I don't know how many of you watched the UCLA-Texas game, but if did, and if you've followed the travails of the Bruins, then you know that they don't have a great QB (an understatement) but they do have some great RBs. The defense, the receivers, the O-line do not instill much confidence. So this season, Norm Chow instituted a variant of the "pistol offense," sometimes referred to as the "revolver." So on Saturday, the unranked and generally laughed-at "gutty little Bruins" went into Austin and humiliated a top ten ranked team. And they did it with...27 yards passing!!! and a phenomenal running game. I believe the most running yards Texas had given up this year was around 50 and UCLA went well over 200. My point here is that this is similar to the offense I THOUGHT Gailey was going to run this year, considering the weakness at QB and the strength at RB, and question marks around the rest of the squad. Sure worked to perfection against Texas. Any comments?

Darryl LaMonica!

What the heck is wrong with you, bringing intelligence and insight into this never-ending discussion?

One thing about Fitz, he gives you everything he has. Unfortunately, that isn't enough. What you saw yesterday was "The Full Fitzy." He's smart, he's tough, he's ballsy...and he is erratic. We could HOPE for more from him, but we can't EXPECT more. He is what he is, with all the good and bad. Just as we can say about TE, "We've seen him play enough to know he's not the answer," we can say about Fitzpatrick that "He's played long enough in the NFL to know this is as far as he is going to develop." There will be no blossoming into Philip Rivers or even Mark Sanchez. He has developed as far as he's going to. But he sure is a big improvement over TE (Gotta think the Bills would have won that Miami game with Fitz under center, don't you?).

Excellent post.

"Pansy @ss liberals?" The NFL is one of the most conservative organizations on earth. You have to be an individual "sportsman" to own a franchise. Which means you have to be very, very wealthy (at least for now...I believe the NFL is right about halfway through its "jump the shark" moment). I would be shocked if any of them ever voted for a liberal in their lives. With very few exceptions, the league and its plantation owners care about one thing and one thing only: Dinero. They only care about the fans, the players, the taxpayers and the heritage of the game to the extent that it impacts "their" money. Of course, in the contemporary world of Tea Party logic ("Keep the government's hands off my Medicare"), conservative probably does mean liberal. And the Bills are going to win the next Super Bowl.

He stink in Buffalo...he's a California kid.

I have a couple of friends who share season tickets in that general section and they claim this guy is a giant rectum.

Apparently the panic continues. It's been reported on another thread that Steve Johnson is out and Roscoe is now the #2 receiver. Here's what I find odd about it. If Johnson was a problem screwing up the offense, why would you bench Edwards? And if Edwards was the problem, why would you bench Johnson? And if both were problems, then you wasted your off-season. In any case, it looks panicky to me.