Mikie2times

I haven't been very positive, more nuetral, and hoping to see players develop. Like I said I don't give Buffalo a stroing chance against a team like Chicago under normal circumstances. But in the NFL you look for situational events to influence motivation. Here Chicago is going from a playoff atmospshere verse the Seahawks to Playing a Bills team that is still under the radar. On the flip side Buffalo has a head coach who was treated unfairly by Chicago management. I just think Buffalo has very little chance of coming out flat for this game, while Chicago could be playing with a hangover off such a big game Sunday Night.

In different circumstances against a team the caliber of Chicago, on the road, things could get ugly. That said I love the way this game shapes up. Jaurons ugly departure from Chicago makes me believe he will have our guys fired up for this game. I also like that Chicago is playing this week on Sunday night against a big time team. They should expend a lot of energy tonight verse the Seahawks. I love the line, and the chance of an upset.

Isn't it starting to seem old Whitey did have an eye for talent? Unfortunately he could never assemble a staff competent enough to mold it.

Say they convert that half back option, what happens next time? And the time after that? All those trick play worked for us in 2005, but failed miserably in 2006. Just like with us he's trying to trick teams, but like 06 teams expect him to try and trick them. You plug away with the fundamentals of the game, and you keep to the philosophy you preached. How can't that be more beneficial to the long term then trying to find a short term solution EVERY time? Even if it doesn't work that's your only chance of ever amounting to anything in this league.

The Dolphins line sucks, much like the Bills did last year. Still as a coach you must get your players to buy into a concept. If you preach a power run game yet rely on deception in power situations it sends mixed signals. He's basically saying were not good enough at what's supposed to define us, so we must trick you. I don't think Mularkey is as bad as people make him out to be, but this identity crisis is why he had to go. Perfect example was the Dolphins 2 point conversion attempt. If you don't think your line will get enough push to convert on the ground then you turn to your passing game. You make the decision between the two even if they haven't shown they can do it yet. The reason is they need to believe they can do it, and plays like this is what builds that belief. Instead Mularkey try’s to fix the situations short term by trying to deceive the opponent with a half back option pass. They don't convert, Miami gains no long term confidence, and now Mularkey has basically told his offense they have a better chance with deception then execution.

Ouch, my Dentist was really on the ball. He took so many x-rays he started to see a trend in my wisdom teeth and knew that they would eventually be a problem. At first the first sign I got them pulled. I hear if they grow to long the removal can get pretty ugly. Way to go Dr. Miller.

His drop off in big plays can be just as easily attributed to less big play attempts then a drop in performance. If a CB goes from being picked on as a rookie, to slowly being avoided as they get older, big plays will go down. If you cut the attempts in half you cut the production in half. The big play is what we remember, but we don't even see the big plays in terms of coverage sacks, play disruptions, game plan disruptions etc. My money's on Nate being pretty good in those areas.

Nice..... Well Baxter I'm pretty sure I have to pay for a bunch of channels I want nothing to do with.

Sounds just like mine, did you get both sides done? I was suprised to hear they put so many under. All you feel is some pressure, past that I didn't even know when it came out.

It's street slang for colon.

Oakland is hands down the worst team in football. Tom Walsh the OC was out of football for 5 plus years, same goes for Shell. After watching them for about 6 quarters it's clear they're very inexperienced with current NFL schemes. The only threat they have on offense is Jordan and Moss, but even then the O-Line is in such shambles they can't be utilized. At times during week one they honestly looked like they would be sacked every passing play. Gallery is looking like a major bust at LT, and hasn't been able to handle the switch. Two other lineman changed positions all together. They have zero cohesiveness, and judging from some player remarks after they traded Gabrial they don't seem to have complete faith in the coaches. IF you can get past that the trend in this game is one of the few MAJOR NFL betting trends you see that work every year. Teams that are 0-2 ATS and SU off a bye as home dogs cover 80% over the last 5 years.

Over the last two years MaGahee hasn't been able to score in the red zone or pick up many 3rd and shorts. The line hasn't helped but the number of failed attempts is astonishing. Sooner or later we will have to let A-Train have a shot in this role if Willis can't get it done. I feel like the decision hasn't already been made because of the impact it might have on MaGahee. You would think with MaGahee's size we wouldn't have the need for a short yardage back. He will feel the same way, and it will probably bother him even more since he feels like he's a true feature back. Maybe he needs that fire lit under him to get things going, but if we switch to Thomas in short yardage he needs to accept the decision, and do everything in his power to improve.

I agree JSP. I'm sure you've heard the line about us being the first home team to ever pass for 300 yards and rush for 150 yards, and still lose. That little factoid stung, but at the same time who would have thought this team could gain over 450 yards of offense? Fumbles have proven to be a random occurrence for 100% of the QB's in this league not named Bledsoe. JP can't let those happen, but in terms of the future 450 yards of production is more significant then 3 turnovers. Sorry for referencing stats, I must suck!

Maybe you missed his question, it was where was Shelton? Not why can’t the Bills run the goal line package without him. But what makes you think the Bills would want to run there goaline package without Shelton? The Bills don't have the players to line up man on man and out power defensive lines in short yardage. That statement applies with Shelton healthy, so how do they end up looking any better in it without him? Expect Fairchild to continue trying to find sets that work for us in short yardage. In the meantime the rest of us can get pissed were not running for 0 yards on three consecutive carries from our goal line set.

I know he was hurt late, possibly on that drive. Still even when he's been healthy this problem dates back well into last year. It's forced us to be cute in these situations, which can lead to a bit of an identity crisis when you’re trying to run the ball 30+ times a game and be a power football team.

I bet if the Bills were in the playoffs down 35-3 in the 3rd quarter you would leave the stadium

Over the last two years Willis has had more success between the 20's then your average NFL back. Yet whenever a 3rd or 4th and short comes up we can't ever seem to run for a first down. What bothers me the most is this was one of MaGahee's greatest strengths in 2004, and while he played at Miami. IMO the biggest problem is the Bills are going in the direction of finesse on there offensive line, and that style doesn't fit the type of RB MaGahee is. He's not a one step cutback style runner, and he doesn't get to the edge with a ton of speed. The type of line we have goes with a Clinton Portis or Willie Parker type runner. Ideally Buffalo's offense would be best off with that style back, plus a short yardage specialist (Possibly A-Train). If we intend on keeping Willis we must at the very least look at upgrading our run blocking. To me that means either replacing both Guards, or replacing one G and one T. I like Duke Preston as a G prospect, but I worry his run blocking won't be an upgrade over Villerial, who could be on his last hurrah. On the opposite side Reyes would be much better served as a back up, and would bring a lot of depth in that roll. We would be ok with one G out of Villerial, Preston, or Reyes, but if we do that we need to move Peters over to LT. Right now Gandy is an average to above average LT, but he's all finesse, and the same goes for Peters whose inexperience hurts his leverage in these situations. We would be best served bringing in a true power RT, something we had in 2004 with Williams (I know horrible pass blocking). Peters could then move to LT, and Gandy would slide into being an outstanding depth player. Of course I fully expect Willis, and the OL to do just enough between the 20's to make no changes come 2007.

That’s all my original point was. To add to that most young QB's that make it seem to hit a point in there development when production is strong but turnovers remain high. JP hasn't even reached that point in his development yet. He's appeared to play up tight and over cautious football, which limits turnovers but hurts accuracy and production. So when he lets loose like he did today, and some turnovers result, I can feel good in saying at least his production went way up. Without that increase then we should really start to worry. If people want to simplify it to it means nothing we still lost then so be it. It's probably the same people that thought we had a chance at the playoffs after week 2.

JP's turnovers lost us this game. What really makes it look worse is that one of them was returned for a touchdown. This loss hurts, but I'm trying to find positives, and if you can look past the turnovers JP was able to accomplish alot today. Over 300 yards passing, over 8.5 per attempt on 38 throws, and two TD's accounted for. This was the first game in which his performance threw the entire game was great enough to win a game for this team. The turnovers neutralized that, but maybe next time that doesn't happen. The reality is this is rebuilding year, and nothing, including this Jets game, means more to the long term future of Buffalo then JP showing he can win games with his arm.

How you feeling about the trip to East Lansing? My MSU friends are usually pretty confident ND will overlook them, but they seem nervous after the Michigan route.

This may be a stupid question but does Buffalo get most there weather from Michigan a day after or so? Just curious because seems like most the time I was dumped with snow you guys were REALLY dumped with snow. The local Michigan weather man said we will see some bad weather Saturday evening with the potential for Tornado's and severe T-Storms.

I don’t get worked up by the prognosticators. I'm not saying I'm the most knowledgeable guy in the world but I played for over a decade, and watched just about every second of every game live since DTV came out. Who from the national media watches every second of every Bills game like so many of us do? If you weed out the homering the wall is a million times more insightful and accurate then anything you'll read from the large news outlets.

The half yardage credit for a successful FG isn't a bad idea. As for your other comments at the core of this system is the fact that it credits offenses for having to drive farther with the ball, and weakens defenses for having a smaller field to defend. The cumulative totals on the year are the numbers I use, not the average % of each individual drive. So if the Bills averaged starting on there own 35 this year, and had 19 total drives the yard potential on offense would be 100-35= 65, multiplied by the amount of drives (19) for a total of 1235 potential yards. Whatever they actually gained is divided by that number for the raw offensive ranking. I then apply the SOS methods I've explained for the final numbers.

Some Questions, I will do my best to answer them. Mile High- This is a difficult concept to convey on a message board. I spent a great deal of time explaining the SOS, but the role it plays in the final number is only 25%. This is actually less then most statistic based rating systems. The disparity you see with some teams in the rankings does not mean they haven't performed well, all it means is the NFL isn't deep enough in it's schedule for a more accurate SOS to be accessed. Without great raw numbers you won't be making it very high in these rankings anyway. The overall record of teams that have played those ranked lower then them is 59-5 after 2 weeks, So like I said, despite the lack of a true SOS early on these rankings are still representing what has happened in the NFL very accurately. If you want a more detailed explanation of how I apply SOS read the next paragraph. Lets say Buffalo scores a a 10% offensive rating, and a 15% defensive rating (just an example) The SOS for offense would be made up of two parts. 50% would be the the combined opponents defense rating, with the other 50% being the offensive rating those opponents have faced. So if we played defenses who average 10% better then the rest of the league, and those teams have played offenses that average 5% better then the rest of the league, the defensive SOS we've faced would be 15%. Our raw offensive rating was 10%, so just take 25% of the SOS number and add it to the offensive rating and that's the final offensive rating. The same is done of the defense, and the combined number ends up being the power rating. Shamrock- This doesn't factor in points in anyway. It might be a little over the top for some but I don't feel points scored and allowed is the best statistic to use for future predictions. Points get effected by way to many outside factors that may or may not happen again down the road. Yards for and against, and Yards Per Attempt, are much better future predictors, but they also aren't without shortcomings. This method is meant to take away those shortcomings. All you need to know for the raw numbers is how far a team could drive the ball, and how far they did drive the ball. If a team started at it's own 20 they could drive 80 yards. If they drive 75 yards and it results in no points they still get credit for a 75 out of 80 possible yards.

Most your strong teams in this league have one dominating unit, either offense or defense. The window is the amount of time until age, and FA rip apart the dominating unit, thus taking away any legitimate chance at a Super Bowl. Most Super Bowl Champions usually have that dominating unit, and need at least an above average supporting cast to go all the way. Lining up those two elements within the window has proven to be one of the most difficult things to do in football. What I love about this team is the odds of these elements lining up within the next 5 years. We clearly have the makings of an outstanding defensive unit, a shockingly young defense unit to boot. They will play for a long time together, and should become our dominating unit. We also have some young weapons on offense, and have the next few seasons to develop and add additional talent to that side of the ball. We really have a chance at having both these things working for us with a 2-3 year window.