MJS

Good stuff from Marino. I seem to always see eye to eye with him. He has a good, nuanced approach to everything. He can be very critical when needed, but never loses sight of the bigger picture and the positive direction this franchise has been taking and will continue to take.

Well, I would like to see how things go in the regular season before I start freaking out about what we don't have and who is to blame. I do know this: there will always be a position or two of concern. There simply is not enough talent and money to be spent in order to have good starters at every single position.

Preseason games have their place. They are there to get some reps for starters, but mostly for evaluating your players and ironing out kinks. They don't game plan. They are only mildly trying to win the game. If there are problems, you address them and try to use it to get ready for the season. Nothing more. Nothing less. Fans should not make sweeping judgements about the team or even players in the limited reps they get.

Well, he has always been a homer but he knows, from experience, that the results of preseason games are completely meaningless. You seem to really care about this preseason game. Maybe you are the one being ridiculous...

I think the Saints could be one of the best teams in the NFC. Carr has to be one of the best QB's there now, right? And they have talent. Their defense is strong. They have weapons on offense. I see no reason for then to not be a top 3 team in the NFC. The Packers are a huge question mark for me. It comes down to their QB. As far as I'm concerned, they don't have one until they prove they do. I highly doubt the Jags are going to be the 1 seed, but I could see them winning their division. They are overhyped for sure. I see no chance in the Pats making the playoffs. They do not have the talent needed in the AFC and in a tough division. They could get to 8 or 9 wins, but that won't be enough.

Much of the pressure in the last preseason game was due to Josh Allen moving poorly in the pocket or bailing out of clean pockets. Allen needed to step up instead of retreat, and there was two times he bailed out and rolled to the right, causing his own pressure. Another time he took a 7 step drop and then hitched like 4 times before throwing it. Linemen can't block that long, usually. It's not all on the oline. Allen had poor pocket presence and held the ball too long at times.

Ok, so if the Bills don't win the superbowl, they are complete and utter losers, regardless of anything else they accomplished. So, the Bills of the last few years are no different than the Bills of the drought years for you. That extremism as a fan is a very sad, irrational, and unrealistic way to view the team. Why can't fans find satisfaction in doing well during the regular season, or winning a playoff game, or getting to the conference championship game, or any other forms of accomplishment? It is a more complete and honest way to view success and the team. Yes, the superbowl is the most important and highest form of winning, but there are still other accomplishments to recognize too.

Shakir was a 5th rounder. AJ and Boogie have been a regular part of the rotation. Dorian Williams hasn't played a down. The season hasn't started yet.

The Bills play rookies all the time, they just didn't with Cook and Elam last year. Most rookies have played right away under this regime.

Well, I don't vicariously live through the team, personally. And I find it a little unhealthy to be so fanatical about something. For instance, I try not to let a bad game affect my mood and affect the way I treat other people. I try to take a deep breath and move on. It is only a game, after all. I consider myself a huge fan of the team and of football in general. I listen to multile podcasts each day. I check and post on the message board daily. I think there is a way to be a huge fan but also be nuanced, rational, and realistic with the team. Yes, it means the highs probably aren't as high for me as they are for you, but the lows certainly are not as low either.

Yeah, I find that a little strange. Nobody can be a fan only because of "winning". Fans aren't winning anything, the players are. If that is the case, the primary reason is a tribal loyalty reason, where you feel you are a part of the team and it is your tribe versus their tribe, kind of thing. The primary reason is entertainment, for most fans. Football is a form of entertainment. There'd be little reason to watch if it isn't entertaining. I love football. I think it is a very intricate and strategic game with amazing feats of athleticism. I love the game itself, and I enjoy watching professionals play it at a high level. I watch and root for the Bills because I was raised that way, and I feel loyalty to them. I've never lived in Buffalo, so it is a purely family thing for me. I don't have loyalty to the city itself, really. A bit, because of the familiarity of the Bills being there. And winning makes it all way more fun to watch, so I want the team to win, and when they do win it feels good. It makes everything better and more exciting as a fan. Losing is not fun and does not feel as good as a fan.

For most people I'm sure it is mostly all of the above.

That's simply not true.

Wow, so how did he build a top 5 team in the NFL? The Bills have one of the most talented teams in the league.

Olinemen grab on every single play. You just have to know when to let go to not get called for holding.

Don't overreact to preseason games. I watched him scramble in the first game and take a small hit as he slid. What a lie.

It might be a platoon at the position. Dodson and Klein on potential run downs, Bernard on passing downs. Not ideal. McDermott will need to scheme around them. I don't know how realistic it is to bring in a new MLB and expect him to start, especially given they need to call plays and lead the defense. That ship has sailed, I think.

I think that is a good example of a game where a few things go wrong in the beginning and it just spirals out of control after that. There are going to be games like that, sometimes. Luckily, this was the preseason. Also, it takes superstars like Josh Allen to stop the spiral, and he is certainly capable of that. Even when everything is going wrong, he can still string plays together to make it a positive. Pretty incredible, and if this was a real game and he played the entire thing, I think he would have righted the ship and changed the momentum. Also, it was clear to me that McDermott ran a more vanilla defense. Obviously, there was no game planning or in-game adjustments, etc. It's preseason. The two big issues are the penalties and the bad QB play behind Allen. I do think Dawkins is a little overrated, and I think it is because fans enjoy his personality. He has some good games, but he also has bad games. Overall, he is an average player who can be streaky.

I think you could put rankings 10 through 20 in a hat and draw them out in any order you want. I don't think there is much difference there between those teams.

It's pretty rare to have good starters at every single position. I don't think it is the case for any team in the NFL, including the Chiefs, Bengals, and any other good team out there. And there will always be one or two positions of concern for the Bills, no matter what. That is just how it is in the NFL. There will be strengths and weaknesses for every team.

That mindset is how you get hurt. If you play scared, you actually put yourself at risk. You have to be confident and all-in.

But they didn't need a center.

The conservatorship and his rookie contract are two different things. He could have understood one and not the other.

He probably just let his agent do everything. Many NFL players just focus on football and sign the papers their agents tell them to sign.

The only accident I have ever been in is when I stopped at a stop sign and a motorcyclist plowed into me. Luckily he wasn't hurt, but he left a big dent in my bumper that his insurance paid for. I see motorcyclists do some pretty dumb things all the time on the freeway, including not wearing a helmet. I am always shocked by how little they esteem their own life. I got very close to getting a motorcycle when I was younger and even signed up for classes/training, but then I got a really bad feeling about it and decided against it. I have a family to provide for, and I determined it was too risky.