Wraith

Not to mention I have yet to hear him offer any way to MEASURE whether Losman is making quick decisions or not. Because without a good measure, how do the hell do we really know what he's capable of? Anecdotal evidence is useless clearly, or else I could make the argument that Losman's short third down passing attempts against Miami were the result of reading the biltz and hitting the hot receiver who would attempt to break a tackle for the first down. Those sure SEEM to be quick, intelligent decisions. But how can I really know? If I could rewatch every one of Losman's games again and break them down AND I knew what the play was that was called and what the reads were supposed to be, I might attempt that analysis. But I don't have the Bills playbook so I'm just going to have to rely on the Bills coaching staff for that.

No, not really. The changes from the end of last season to the beginning of this season represent a large "process change," thus what is considered normal this year will probably be different from what we considered normal last year. My point, which you still seemed to have missed, is that it is entirely too early to make judgements of any kind (good OR bad). Noticed I used the word "probably" in the paragraph above. Two data points is still not nearly enough. If it were, I would be shouting from the nearest mountain that Losman's completion percentage has jumped nearly 15 points this year. But I'm not. Yet. If you react to limited data, you are "chasing" the process, adding variation and inconsistency, and destroying any possiblity of gaging what the process is actually capable of. Mike Mularkey was incredibly guilty of this, managers and process operators world wide are guilty of this, and so are you. And why on earth would I want to compare one performance by Losman to the average performance of Roethlisberger or Dilfer? There is no basis for comparison (mean to mean would be better, but still misleading). That would be like comparing Roethlisberger's ~100 yard performance last night to Losmans ~140 yard average and saying Big Ben is no J.P. Losman. What's the point?

Holcomb's Arm: You claim to rely on statistical analysis so much, but you are breaking the cardinal rule of data analysis: PLOT DATA! And the corrollary: Do NOT (under any circumstances) react to single data points. Without historical data there is NO way to PROVE whether one performance is exceptionally bad, exceptionally good, getting worse, getting better, or "normal." Without historical data to establish what is normal behavior, you could just as easily be reacting to noise as to an actual signal. Simply put, historical data establishes CONTEXT. Without CONTEXT, attempting to prove any kind of change or trend is useless. A note to the rest of you: DO NOT believe it. You are taking Sunday's low yardage performance and using it alone to try to convince us of a point that you have no historical evidence to support. In fact, historical data shows us Losman's strong suit is yardage. The mean YPG (Yards Per Game) for Losman's career is 144.27 yards/game. The last seven samples (since the last "process change" when Losman resumed playing in the KC game in November) are 137, 168, 197, 224, 181, 164, and 83 yards. Obviously, no downward or negative trend exists. If the string of low yardage continues (and we start LOSING THE DAMN game), then we can talk. And not a second earlier.

Check again. Parrish caught the ball behind Mike Gandy, of all people, who decked his guy perfectly on the swing pass. Reed was a good 5 yards ahead of and to the outside of Parrish.

Man, I envy you. I am a 2005 Alum and this time of year just kills me now that I've graduated. I will probably be at the game regardless, as Rochester is a pretty convenient drive.

Are you serious?

Any camera is going to suck if you try to take pictures in sport mode at night with it. Sport mode decreases the "exposure" time so as not to blur a subject in action. Night mode does the exact opposite.

Two points: On both of the delay of game plays (or near delay of game as it was in one case) Losman broke the huddle with less than ten seconds left on the clock. This is indicative of a problem, but with the play callers, not Losman. Now, a more seasoned quarterback might have been able to read the defense with one eye on the play clock, true. But I wouldn't put the blame on him alone. Secondly, it's hard to find fault with J.P.'s "touch" or accuracy on the deep ball, as anyone who's been to camp this year can attest that is what he does best. If that word of mouth evidence isn't enough for you, simply look to last year's Texan's game, Kansas City game, or Miami game. He showed over and over again that he can hit people in stride, through tight spaces, deep. He missed one deep receiver by a very small margin last night and people are overreacting.

Steroids are illegal.

The judge's EXACT words were "Helsel is not a naive teenager, but an experienced adult who must be held fully responsible for what she did."

We've had a QB look good?

I'm not quite sure you understand the situation here. He already signed the offered sheet. It is totally out of Wells' hands now. If the Cards match the offer he stays in Arizona, if not he's a Bill. The "he might stay because he likes his coach/teammates/city/whatever" ship has already sailed.

I'm glad we didn't have the mentality you suggest back when we pursuing Spikes...

UB Basketball moved on to the second round of the MAC Tournament tonight, defeating Ball State by 8 despite allowing about 40 points to Skip Mills. Crazy, crazy game. This one fits in well with the recent history of tournament games at Alumni Arena.

I HATE the "he would've gotten his feet down if he wasn't pushed" rule. Talk about handcuffing the defensive back...

I think that says it all right there.

I would be really interested to hear what the penalty called was. I was 7 at the time of that game and thus have no clear recollection of most of it. I also whole-heartedly agree with your statements regarding the psychological effects of moving the kick back five yards.

It's obscurity is what makes it funny.

Okay for all you middle aged guys who can't figure out Fake-Fat Sunny.... Mike Mularkey has the initials MM. The rapper EMINEM (M and M, short for Marshall Mathers) is famous for his song The Real Slim Shady. The opposite of real would be fake, the opposite of slim would be fat, and the opposite of shady would be sunny. Is it all coming together now?

The author of this thread is making assumptions. The article, posted at 2:40 today, is written in the past tense but says nothing about the interview or when it was completed. It simply says he's in town and then goes on about his previous qualifications. The exact same type of article was written about Dick Jauron at 2:31 yesterday. They're both boilerplate articles that were probably uploaded at some standard time. So if we're going by the articles tense and publication time alone, Sherman was actually in Buffalo for 9 minutes longer! But we're not, because that would be stupid.

I don't think you can include the Bailey fumble. I agree that he probably fumbled through the endzone and it should have been a fumble. However, there is ZERO way to prove it with replay unless you have the Goodyear Blimp parked directly over the pylon when it happens. It's all about perspective and angle of viewing. Ironically, Simms idea of drawing a line between where the ball landed and where Bailey lost it and seeing if that line passes through the endzone actually has merit (even a blind squirrel....) but is infeasabile. More time and more sophisticated equipment on the sidelines would be necessary.

You need to calm the hell down. Are you this shrill about everything? If you ever leave a job because of a bad situation, make sure you broadcast it here so we can get worked up about it here and redicule you. It all comes down to this. Mularkey was in a bad situation. There is no denying this. He was a total lame duck. So he had two options: Leave and blame it on the Bills organization (which is probably more truthful), or leave and say it's "in the best interest of his family" (more vague and a hell of a lot more classy). It could've been much worse. Mularkey has taken the high road, it is crazed fans like you and equally moronic "journalists" (I use that term loosely) who have filled in the blanks with their own ideas.

So how many draft picks do we have? All of our 7 picks, plus Tennessee's 3rd is all that I'm aware of. I've read in this thread about multiple second rounders and compensatory picks and all that. Are these just mistakes, typos, and conjecture, or do we truly have additional picks that I'm not aware of?

Gee, that worked so well the last time we tried it....

That's what I liked about him. What the heck do I care if the announcer is rooting for the same team I am?