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Long Suffering Fan

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Everything posted by Long Suffering Fan

  1. TPS, I agree 100%. We cross-posted and I did not see your reply until after I finished mine. You said what I was trying to say, just more succinctly. 👍
  2. Short answer: No. Long answer: Leadership comes in different shapes and sizes. I'm a fan of Situational Leadership Theory, which is often associated with Blanchard. Simply put, you have to craft your leadership to the task and situation. Grabbing a face mask might be needed or might not. It also could be counter-productive. Josh is more of a servant leader that leads by example. He demands a lot from himself and he demands a lot from others. That is the key. The outward yelling might not be leadership at all. It might just be petulance. Again, sometimes the yelling is helpful, but that is not the key driving factor. I actually think Josh's leadership fits better in the more modern NFL where players earn millions. His style also fits (or was molded by) McDermott's philosophy of having a leader in every room. You want to have a leader among the WRs, among the TEs, etc. Coaching only goes so far, but when you have a RB working hard and amplifying the coach's method, the other RBs will tend to follow. It's not unlike the army philosophy that a unit is only as good as its NCO's. (In that analogy, think of the coaches as officers and the sergeants as key players in each room) Tom Brady is a great leader, but it is not because he grabbed facemasks. He was a great leader because he was the hardest working guy in the building and, since he was on board, it gave Belichick even more room to demand more from everyone. I'm so sorry. I said something nice about TB. I feel dirty. Time to hit the shower.
  3. Not my intent. Just the opposite. The point I was trying to make was they have become us.
  4. Hello, my name is Long Suffering Fan and I will confess to having Bill Belichick PTSD. Ever since SBXXV he has had some rent free space in my head. He's playing chess, while your playing checkers...he will always take away what you do best, etc. Last year was a good step in overcoming this affliction, but the windstorm game set me back. I don't think the Bills were embarrassed in that game, but I do think they were out coached. The Bills response with the heavy 4-3 formation they use to combat 6 offensive linemen was a relief to me. So, I should have been confident going into the game last night, but I wasn't. Why? Belichick's frontal lobe condo above my neck. The game went miles toward evicting him, but what really sealed the deal was reading the game thread of a PATS forum. I wanted to see what they were feeling in the moment as the game went on. Here are some representative posts that I read: (all times are approx) 8:30 PM: This is gonna be 20 years of revenge coming out tonight isn’t it 8:40 PM: Seriously wondering if Buffalo will go two games in a row without punting. This is after our first drive and in the middle of our second drive. This shocked me. What I learned is that the Pats fans thought we were the better team. They were like I used to be rooting for the Bills. We want to believe we are better. Deep down we really doubt that and it doesn't take much in the game to bring those doubts bubbling to the surface. For the Pats fans to be sensing doom half way through the first quarter is shocking. 8:45 PM: did coach bill think Allen wasn't going to run? they look totally unprepared We have ZERO answer for Knox. Excellent execution. Bill should be embarrassed. His son’s defense is soft, slow and dumb. Lots of comments like this - We need to get rid of the yes, daddy coaches, etc. His defense is soft!!! This is when it dawned on me - the PATS fans don't think Bill is invincible, why did I think that way? 8:50 PM: I wonder if they'll actually talk about any other player besides Josh Allen at any point tonight lol I used to say the exact same thing about how the broadcasters yammered on about Brady. 9:00 PM: You just keep wondering , how much worse can it get? And it does just that. Like, can they at least keep it at 17-0 here? Again, this was me from the past posting on a Pats forum. We haven't even scored our 3rd TD yet! 9:10 PM: score here and score to start 2nd half. Unbelievable! I laughed out loud! How many times have I said something like this the last two decades facing the Pats? As I try to convince myself that my lying eyes are wrong and there is actually a glimmer of hope. At this point, their board begins tearing itself apart. Some attacking, some defending, some blaming the game on the refs, some calling those people ridiculous, and then people attacking certain Pats players. And the sweetness comes at the end as reality really settles in: >10:30 PM: - The most disturbing thing about these last two games against the #Bills is that Josh Allen is only 25 and will be in your division for the next decade. (This is a post of someone else's tweet) - Just think the Bills endured this kind of whipping for years. It sucks. - Nice quickness by Bolden on that punt return. I have seen the residents at my grandmother's nursing move faster when the tapioca pudding is brought out. (I included this one just for the humor value) - Shut down corner can't cover a plodding TE. PAY THAT MAN! - I suspect they are unleashing decades of frustration of us owning them. - Probably already noted, but body language on the Pats has seemed like "damn, it's too cold, can we just go home?" since the opening kickoff. Body language on the Bills has seemed like "damn, can we crank up the A/C some more, it's not cold enough out here." - I think this forum and everyone else has to start giving Josh Allen credit he looks so good at the moment and killed the chiefs earlier this year. On this last one - many on their board did not want to give Allen credit and it contributed to them being very hard on Belichick. How can an above average QB do that to you? That started to change during the game. Reading all that made me realize the fan bases have LITERALLY SWITCHED POSITIONS. They are where I once was. Billy B has officially been evicted from my mind....and it is sweet. Here is hoping that McDermott and Allen can get some rent free space among many in the Boston area. Go Bills!
  5. Have you ever SEEN Top Gun? This was chock full of references and had me smiling the whole way.
  6. I mean, this is really true - not because of the flight of the ball, but because of the gripping to throw and the catching. Maybe Josh's hands are big enough so that the first matters less, but the second will always matter. In that weather, the ball becomes a slippery rock made worse by the fact that Josh is firing it as hard as he can to get it to cut through the wind. It is the same principle which sees fewer fumbles if the ball is a little deflated in cold weather. I don't want to bring up the nameless one, but the accusations against him were always very believable to me, and not just because it was the cheats. Josh needs to make sure that his balls are at the very bottom of the legal limit.
  7. Florio doesn't like it? That makes me like it more. As has been said, the wonderlic is pretty easy, especially if you practice for it at all. If you can't be bothered to practice, maybe you are lazy. If practice doesn't help you at all, you have issues. Maybe this doesn't matter on the lines, but it has to matter for QBs. Lamar, for as good as he is (I actually wanted to draft him that year as we would not have had to move up to get him and I believed the - defeat math itself - narrative on our Josh), is not as good from the pocket as our Josh, despite having all the tools.
  8. Couldn't have been happier for Kyle. Class guy who worked hard and was good. I'm glad he got to see the playoffs once.
  9. Unfortunately, the biggest difference is that the Skip Bayless and Stephen A types make millions of dollars more....which is why they exist. I agree with your point, of course. I'm with you.
  10. Something good from WGR that I caught on the morning show. They were talking about how the Patriots game plan apparently was to keep Josh in the pocket and force him to be a quarterback...and he carved them up. Supposedly, when Josh was leaving the field after the game he said: "Who the BLEEP do they think I was?" I got to tell you, I love it. He viewed their game plan as an insult to him and he jammed it down their throat. Who are you, Josh? I hope you are their daddy for a long, long time.
  11. I'm not a guy who checks out other team message boards, but I am taking extra time this morning to soak up the win. I am off today and I just want to marinate in this feeling for a little bit longer. That lead me to this quote in the Pats forum: Think for a moment what makes this quote so sweet. I don't believe very many people actually think Mac is injured in any real way. I certainly didn't see anything to lead to that conclusion. They are grasping for hopeful explanations on why some of his throws looked so bad...
  12. Just got to the end....and it was the best.... - They believe that they would win a rematch against the Colts because they don't believe in Carson Wentz. - They knew that the last win against Buffalo was "fluky". - You have to face the fact that Buffalo, Indi, and KC are better teams than you. - Today you got the best version of Josh Allen. They have that and you don't. (meaning Buffalo has Josh and they don't have anything comparable.) They have that and you don't. They have that and you don't. They have that and you don't.
  13. OP - Thanks for posting. It was actually a good listen. Those two were the most reasonable and level headed NE dudes I have ever listened to. For those who don't have the time, here are some highlights: - Buffalo was the better team. - If Josh Allen is as good as the people in Buffalo say he is, then he had to be the best player on the field. To his credit, he was the best player on the field. (yes, they said that) - Why didn't the Pats adjust to Isaiah McKenzie? They just left their DB on an island to be abused....and it was not like he was battling and occasionally making plays. - Josh was willing to take the check downs early. They mentioned that the patriot players talked about how Josh being willing to take the checkdowns early caused them a lot of problems. - Hightower was taken out a lot in the second half because they realized that he could not cover in space. - One of them said that he is not a "separation guy" but his view from the pressbox was that the Bills secondary blanketed the patriot receivers. - Why did NE bring in these TEs and then not use them? - they particularly talked about Jonnu Smith. - The Patriots have been a little too overhyped and that the talk was a year too soon for where they are in the rebuild, especially with Buffalo in the division.
  14. Hey, that version was put out by the Bills. Leaning into the McClappy thing is funny. I'm glad their PR team is self-aware enough to do it. There is a lot of standing around doing nothing on a football field between plays. McDermott fills it with clapping. The average player fills it with Let's Go! Taking a queue from them, I've started using Let's Go! to fill up the huge voids between Bills games. I can already see my life improving. 😀
  15. People say us lurkers don't post enough...😀 I was QB for a flag team back in the day (note that this post is not about my football knowledge, it is about human nature - I don't think I know deep football truths because of this). My style was more like Lamar Jackson (I said style, not ability - I just ran a lot and was fast only compared to the less than athletes I played against) and we were successful. Then I got better at throwing, worked on timing with my receivers, developed a better play set that would give us options against both man and zone, etc. and I fell in love with passing. My receivers would literally come back to the huddle and chew me out for forcing a ball instead of running. It got to the point where I asked them at the start of games to remind me all game long to remember to run. It is a human nature thing - people like Lamar and early Josh are discounted a little for relying on running. It is natural to try to prove them wrong. Remember Lamar saying - not bad for a RB? This hasn't just happened to Josh, it has happened to Dabol. It is inexcusable that more designed QB runs were not called against the patsies (lower case on purpose). Those are calls from above and he was not calling them. I get wanting to save your QB hits, but time and place, man. Do that against the Jets, not the patsies. That was an important game. Dabol needs someone next to him in the booth saying - remember to use Josh's legs - every series, in the red zone, and at key moments.
  16. Can I cry about how Mahomes cost me a fantasy football game last night? I needed 16 points for a tie and 17 for a win. He gets 10 points before we are out of the first quarter and only 4 more points the rest of the night. Jerk...
  17. cwater10 - Nailed it. It was a well written article to be sure, but I live in that middle ground. Naysayers call me an optimist and yaysayers call me a pessimist. There is also the long road to consider. The Bills might not win it all this year or even this Monday, but they are built for sustained long term viability. For the foreseeable future, every year the Bills will have another lottery ticket to the Big Dance in a way that could not be said of this team pre-McBean.
  18. I wish I could give more than one superbowl trophy thumb for this one...totally awesome. I loved this one too...
  19. I would love it. Josh would throw for 1200 yards. Maybe we could just have him start in shotgun with the ball in his hands already when he says "hike." 😀
  20. This week feels so much different than when we played Miami the first time....and it is fantastic! Air Attack Awesome Angst Alleviated Allen's Amazing
  21. Firebaugh Fireballer Finishes Funny Fishes Freeing Foolish Fears
  22. Dude, what is not to love about this guy? There are sport stars that you like because they are good and play for your team. Then there are those that you like for that reason, but also would love to just hang out with. When the Bills were on the rise during the Kelly era, we got negative stories about bickering. With the Bills on the rise in the Allen era, during a time when the media has become much more negative, we get stories about how cool these guys are. Not complaining, just happy and feeling fortunate. I'm actually beginning to believe that these guys are really cool dudes who happen to be great at football. Seriously, I half expect to get a story about how someone on the team risked their lives to save a basket full of puppies and then cracked a self-deprecating joke when asked about it.
  23. Wait...that does seem like a big Belicheat sized loophole. - The reason why you want a player on your 53, even if injured, is so that you can place them on IR and they still will be able to come back from IR during the season. Players put on IR before the cut down to 53 can't come back and are "lost for the year". - This leads to the private deals with someone like Andre Roberts who gets cut but, because he is a vested veteran doesn't go on waivers. Then, the Bills put someone else on the 53, place that player on IR (now that player can come back because he was placed on IR after making the 53), and resign Andre. - It sounds like this COVID exemption list could be turned into a streamlined version of the above loophole. They go on the covid list, you get your 53, now it is safe to IR the players that are hurt and the others come off the COVID list. I am NOT saying we SHOULD do that. I'm saying that I get what the OP is asking.
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