Typical TBD Guy

It blows my mind how much misinformation is in this thread. You can't just haphazardly pencil guys in between 4-3/3-4 schemes and not expect some significant dropoff in production for one of the schemes. Few football players have this versatility at the pro level. Kelsay is the only 4-3 DE on this roster. Guys like Carrington, Edwards, and Johnson are too big and slow to play this position. Guys like Moats and Batten are too small. Davis and Sheppard don't have the range to play 4-3 OLB. Dareus, KW, Johnson, Heard, Barnett, Torbor, and Morrison are the only DL/LB players on this roster who I think have the ability to play somewhere in either formation without any trouble. Almost all of our DL/LB draft picks are specifically 3-4 guys. Look, we are in year two of the 3-4 transition. We are only 1 solid pass rushing OLB away from having a suitable 3-4 defense...2 if you assume Merriman will never return to form. One more draft + free agency period should take care of this. Maybe Coach Edwards sucks. But one thing we know is that his expertise is in the 3-4 defense, and he hasn't been given the full talent to run such a defense. Injuries to KW and Merriman haven't helped. Have a little more patience, people.

I would like to see the Lions get in. I think it's terrible for a franchise's fans to go this long without a playoff appearance. Just think of all the soon-to-be-18 teenagers throughout WNY who will conclude their childhood without having ever seen (or remember seeing) the local Bills in the playoffs. From a marketing standpoint, I think this is disastrous.

10 guys on IR so far: 3 of them are injury prone (Merriman, Easley, Parrish), so no surprise there. 3 of them are scrubs (Corto, Hall, Huggins), so who cares. 2 of them would have made little impact on the rest of this season anyway (Torbor, White). 2 of them just ran into bad luck, and their absence hurts this team immensely (Williams, Wood).

The Bills have had some great 4-3 defenses (mid 1960's, mid 2000's) and some great 3-4 defenses (early 80's, late 90's). They've also had some bad from each. Same is true throughout the NFL, past and present: good and bad from each. So historical precedents are meaningless in terms of which is superior. The bottom line is that you choose the system that maximizes your current talent and the talent you think you can acquire in the near future. For the 2011 Bills, the 3-4 appears to be optimal. Only three players (KW, Kelsay, Spencer J) remain from the 4-3 days. Of those three, only KW is worth building around. And KW proved to be a great 3-4 NT last year, when healthy. Meanwhile, the Bills have already drafted seven guys (Dareus, Troup, Carrington, Moats, Batten, White, Sheppard) with the 3-4 in mind. I know Dareus is versatile, but I'm not so sure about the other six. And when you switch again to the 4-3, you make it that much harder for those other six to make it as a Buffalo Bill. Of the free agents Nix has brought in for the 3-4, Barnett is a guy to build around and I'm not so sure he can transition well to the 4-3. Those clamoring for the 4-3 need to keep a couple things in mind: 1. When healthy, the only real weakness of the current 3-4 defense is at OLB. With a healthy Merriman and Kelsay, even this position wouldn't look as atrocious as it does now. 2. Who is going to play DE when the current defense switches to a full-time 4-3? Kelsay and who else? And Kelsay isn't that overwhelming a pass rusher himself, what with his 25 career sacks over 9 years. What about the LB spots? You run into the same pass rushing problems with the 4-3 switch as you do with the 3-4, but then you create more roster holes at LB. In summary: stick to the 3-4! Draft a 3-4 OLB in day one, another one in day two, and then grab the best available free agent 3-4 OLB assuming Merriman never returns to form (a good assumption).

Except the opposing TE still contributes nothing to the play because he is Shawn Nelson.

Remember that the greatest RB in Bills history and one of the top 5 all-time was declared a bust after THREE years. Then a new coach came in and figured out how to utilize him properly. The rest is history... I'm not saying that CJ is the next OJ; what I'm saying is that the Bills owe it to themselves to maximize CJ's effectiveness while he's still under contract. I like Gailey a lot as an offensive innovator, but I don't think he's doing a good job in the particular case of Spiller. Our base offense needs to put the most talented 11 on the field. Aside from Fitzy, the OL, Chandler, Johnson, and Jackson, I would argue that the next best two are Spiller and Nelson. If that means Spiller's new position is now some hybrid 3rd WR who only takes 25% or so of the handoffs in a game, so be it.

Here you go.

Most of us are, though.

The reality is that Scott Norwood has become the unfortunate scapegoat for a team that collectively choked a winnable game away. He missed a 47 yarder...hardly an automatic field goal for any kicker. Levy was badly outcoached, and the rest of the team spent too much time partying and getting drunk beforehand. The outcome of a game is determined by the sum total of plays and not by any one particular play. If you plan on booing Norwood on Sunday, then you should quit calling yourself a Bills fan because you are a !@#$ing disgrace to the rest of us who call ourselves Bills fans.

They shouldn't do this. It is well past Labor Day.

No, just a voracious appetite for rooster.

The Bengals are easily the most overrated of the teams with 2 losses. Their 4 other wins aside from the Bills came against the following NFL powerhouses: Colts, Jags, Seahawks, Browns. They lost to the 49ers and friggin Broncos. Here are my predictions... The 4 division champs: Pats, Steelers, Texans, Chiefs The 2 wild card teams: Bills, Ravens The 5 teams that will just miss the playoffs: Titans, Jets, Chargers, Raiders, Bengals The 5 teams that will "Suck for Luck:" Colts, Broncos, Jaguars, Water Mammals, Browns

It wouldn't be a problem at all if the folks at the Toronto games were rabid Bills fans. But they're not. It seems like a third of them are lukewarm Bills fans, another third are just fans of the NFL and are completely indifferent to the Bills, and the remaining third seem to be fans of the opposing team. I doubt we'd have this same problem if the game was played in Rochester. Sorry, but Toronto is a ****ty sports town. It's the LA of Canada. They can't support a mediocre to bad team if it's not the Maple Leafs (same thing with LA and their non-Lakers teams). Toronto will never get an NFL team, so long as the CFL is still around and new NFL stadiums are still expensive. Why can't all these potential diehard Toronto Bills fans just make the drive over to Orchard Park? The gameday experience here is so much better.

Son of a B word...

Good morning, dipsh!t. Yes, I do follow the team. I've actually been talking about the Bills here 8 years before you have. Bell still hasn't been cleared to practice, as of Friday. At this point if he does play, it will likely be only as an emergency backup. I don't care what Merriman tells the media. Gailey wasn't as optimistic about him playing. Who is, really? Jones is a key player. He is the lone deep threat WR on the team now that Evans and Parrish are gone. Spiller is an ok substitute, but he hasn't had nearly enough time to develop WR instincts. Show a little more respect for your fellow Bills fans in your future postings.

Redskins are probably thinking the same thing about us. We'll be playing without 4 key starters (Bell, Jones, KW, Merriman) next Sunday.

Those deeper problems being the lack of quality CB's and OLB's on this roster...

Interesting little debate here. I think I agree with you. I think Jackson will eventually go down as the 4th best RB in Buffalo Bills history, right in front of Cribbs and just behind Cookie, Thurman, and OJ. Speaking of Bills RB rankings and also going back to the original topic, I can already come up with 10 Bills RB's better than Greg Bell: 1. OJ Simpson 2. Thurman Thomas 3. Cookie Gilchrist 4. FRED JACKSON (my prediction when his Buffalo career is over) 5. Joe Cribbs 6. Travis Henry 7. Willis McGahee 8. Marshawn Lynch 9. Terry Miller 10. Antowain Smith

As good as Jackson and Johnson are, I think Spiller is going to be the "x" factor that will propel this offense to elite status by next season. The base offense should be a 3-WR set that features CJ officially as a flanker WR but lined up in all sorts of different places to confuse opposing defenses. On certain plays, he will end up running the ball instead of Jackson. I view Spiller as an upgrade to the role Parrish was supposed to play, in terms of both size and skill. We all need to end this perpetual rebuilding mindset. When you have talented players, keep them and figure out how to use them instead of trading for more picks.

LOL just noticed that you told us not to include guys like Phil Hansen who are on the Bills Wall of Fame...then you proceed to list Darryl Talley and Jim Ritcher...

Damien Covington Brandon Spoon Darick Holmes Michael Jasper

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect a 10-6 season...in spite of the injuries, no deep threat on offense, lack of pass rush, the Florence-McKelvin dynamic duo, etc... Here's how it could happen: 6 wins: both Miami games and the remaining home games against the Jets, Titans, Broncos, Skins. 4 losses: away games in NE, SD, NJ Jets, Dallas. For those who don't think we can go 8-0 at home, then it could even out by us stealing one against mediocre Dallas or NJ. We may even win the final NE game if they are resting their starters at that point. The 6 playoff favorites, including us, would likely be: Patriots, Ravens, Titans, Chargers, and then the Steelers and Bills for the wild card spots. Not worried about the Raiders as much since they lost Campbell for the year. The Bengals have yet to play the Steelers or Ravens and have beaten such juggernauts as the Browns, Jags, and Colts. The inconsistent Texans are getting hit hard with injuries and could easily finish the season less than 7-3.

Agreed. Also, Al Davis contributed as much as Merriman last Sunday. Put Ralph at the Sam LB spot and Al's corpse at the Mike LB spot, and we will likely break even in sack productivity.

Your pal Randy would never let his figure go like that. Seeing Christina Aguilera in that first pic makes you want to give up women altogether.

Can't the rest of NY state help out as well? After all, didn't all of us upstaters help fund MetLife Stadium in NJ???