BuffOrange

From the replay I saw, the Curry TD wasn't one on one coverage. It was a zone coverage where Vincent was responsible for the sideline, and the safety was supposed to be covering the deep middle. Baker just bit on a juke and got toasted.

For the 498,783rd time, nobody is saying it's ALL Bledsoe's fault. Clearly, when your offense is pathetic as ours is, everyone is to blame. If at least a couple of guys were playing well, they would at least score one TD when it mattered, without the help of the defense. But ultimately it's the QB's responsibility to make a play once in a while, OK? His #1 job above all else is to help his team score points. It sucked that Josh Reed dropped that 3rd down pass, but that kind of play doesn't stop other teams from getting shut down the ENTIRE GAME. You come back on the next series, and move the ball - which Bledsoe has failed to do over & over again. I mean, did anybody see how many passes Jacksonville dropped against us? More than we did. You also have to be a realist. If you're wating for all 11 guys to suddenly start playing well, it ain't going to happen. However, if you replace the most important player on offense, and upgrade that position, there might at least be a glimmer of hope that the unit becomes close to servicable.....not great, not good, not even average.....just good enough to score, I dunno, slightly below league average, like 17 pts/game. That's all this offense has to do to win some games with the defense we have, and it's painfully obvious that it can't happen with Bledsoe. And since we can't go out and find 5 good OLmen at this point in the year, what other alternatives do we have? Shane Matthews may not be the answer, nor JP as a rookie when he gets healthy, but what do we have to lose?

As Dan Dierdorf would say.... I'm not so sure this isn't the worst offense we've ever seen.

Give me a break - everyone gave this team a break when they were 3-13 b/c the fan base realized they were rebuilding. We're not rebuilding anymore. This is year #4 of a 3 year plan and our offense is worse than it was three years ago.

C'mon - the refs gave Philly 2 of their TD's. A phantom 3rd down holding penalty on their first possession to keep the drive alive, and the non-catch by TO. That team will choke again in January. These QB's are good though. It's like night/day in comparison to #11.

Why? He gets paid the millions to be wrong, not us. Not perfect, I just expect to score a touchdown once in a while and I dunno, God forbid win a game. Is that too much to ask?

Lets see, both teams have scored 20 points so far. For the Bills, 10 points were created by the defense, and another 7 was in garbage time, so that's 3 actual points that the offense has generated when it mattered. Even the sorry Dolphins offense has that beat.

Excellent point. Don't forget the top 5 defense which consisted of Thomas Smith & Ken Irvan as starting CB's, John Holicek, Sam Rodgers, Gabe Northern at LB.... Maybe Wade wasn't such a bad coach.

I suppose that's true if you're into the whole wild-card chase... Personally, I don't give a crap about wild-cards anymore since the conferences expanded to 4 divisions. It is IMPOSSIBLE to win 3 consecutive road games, so it's division or bust as far as I'm concerned.

I'm going to go the other way on that one. Bad matchup for Cincy IMO. Palmer should struggle against a solid veteran D, and their defense isn't good enough to exploit Miami's problems on offense. If the Bengals win it won't be by more than a FG.

I kind of like our chances this week. The "deflating opening home loss followed by a road game against a mediocre team where everyone picks us to lose" formula has yielded victories against the Pats, Jets, and Vikings in '94, '97, and '02 respectively. Plus, we're due for a win against that crumby Oakland organization; and the "black hole" isn't half the intimidating force some make it out to be. Also, this game is not nearly as vital as people are making it out to be IMO. Obviously you'd rather not start 0-2, but win or lose, the Pats and Jets games after the bye are the real "must-wins".

Ughhh....how far this franchise has fallen. "Got everything they wanted short of a win"? Who talks like this? After the 2002 opener vs. the Jets (as depressing as it was) there wasn't nearly as much negativity because there was low expectations for the season. But after doing nothing but lose for 4 years, it just so happens that some of us are sick of it. It's been 9 years since a division title, and I think that sucks for such a football-crazed town that supports its team. If that makes me a "bandwagoner", then so be it; but I've never heard of a bandwagoner watching every game during a 3-13 season and then getting pissed off about an opening day loss following a 6-10 year.

Yes....that's what I was getting at. Why WOULDN'T they have called the same play? Would their gameplan have changed because they're down by 4 points instead of 1 in the 3rd Qtr? Why WOULDN'T the WR have slipped on the same route if the score was 10-6 instead of 7-6? Obviously it was a freak occurance, but the scoreboard didn't have anything to do with it.

This thread is too polarized. Allow me to be the voice of reason. - Brady WAS mediocre at best in 2001, and DID benefit from incredible luck. A total of ONE offensive TD in THREE playoff games including a gift from the refs in the first one that would've put his career postseason record at 0-1. Special teams, defense, and Bledsoe accounted for 4 out of 5 TD's against the Steelers & Rams. Ty Law was the MVP because his int turned the game around. - Ever since then, the guy has been a damn good QB. He responded to fame & fortune in 2002 much better than I thought he would by leading the league in TD passes with a mediocre supporting cast. Say what you want about the Colts game, but SB QB's are rarely at their best for all 3 playoff games. He was efficient and brilliant in the clutch in the other 2 against two tough defenses in Tennessee & Carolina.

He's overrated by Bills fans anyway, many of whom insist he's one of the top 4 WR's in the game. Most "outsiders" rate him in the 7-10 range, which is about right. Yes, we got the ball back on an int, but the Reese int probably happens anyway if Moulds doesn't fumble....I doubt Jax runs a different set of plays or Jerry Gray calls a different defense if the score's 10-6 in the 3rd Qtr instead of 7-6.

Has anybody ever seen the last winner? EVER? I heard he's in the witness protection program. However, Lavar Arrington is a Hall of Famer in terms of "unintentional comedy" as the Sports Guy would say. "Ummm, you could use a little bit more energy.....uhhh, overall it was good but just give me more energy".

Agreed....when I used to play 2-hand touch in college, my friends and I were always aware of the fact that is was 4th down and tried to knock the ball down....that's something you do even if it's the 2nd Qtr. I don't understand how an NFL player can be that dumb.

Right....and the Bills had the 2nd best defense last year. I'll wager anything that NE, Miami, and Baltimore give up fewer points than Jax this year.

What are you smoking? That argument might hold some water if the Bills were playing Syracuse next week. Unfortunately we have some good NFL defenses in our division. The Jags D may not be horrible, but they're nowhere close to the best we'll face this year. They might be on par with the Jets & Raiders - nowhere close to New England, Miami, or Baltimore.

I'm not a fan of the prevent, but blitzing wouldn't have made any difference on the 4thd down plays....Leftwich was just hiking the ball and throwing up prayers. Unless one of the DT's is left untouched, there's nothing a pass-rush can do to stop those plays. Once in a while you have to expect your best DB to make a play on a 4th&14 prayer - if he can't then you've got problems. Then again, maybe they should've blitzed if they were only going to have single coverage deep anyway.

It's like being up by 6 points in the last 20 seconds of a basketball game. You have to miss 2 free throws, then give up a 3, then miss 2 more free throws, give up another 3, then turn the ball over.... 16 different things had to go wrong, and of course... It happens, in our freaking stadium against Byran freaking Leftwich and that mediocre at best team. It sucks - maybe the core players on this team ARE just a bunch of losers as somebody else suggested. Maybe statistically we deserved to win the game, but when your best CB has the footbll IQ of a soccer mom, whose fault is that? We're the team that drafted him.

It's only one game, but this season is toast. The #1 reason I am convinced of this is because the offense did not play NEARLY as BADLY as they're capable of. Think about it - the running game was slightly better than most expected against a stout run D, Bledsoe generally made good, quick decisions with the ball and didn't make many bonehead plays. Mark my words - when the season is up, this game will NOT go down as one of the offense's 5 worst performances of the year. And with all of that, they STILL couldn't generate a SINGLE POINT that wasn't handed to them against a team with a 9 game road losing streak. You want to be one of those people who argues that Jacksonville's defense is underrated, they're going to surprise some people, etc? OK fine - but on their best day they're still not as good as New England or Miami on that side of the ball; so how in the world are we going to score any points against those teams? If/when Losman is 100% sometime this year, start him immediately if we're not above .500. This defense we have won't be together forever, so lets get the growing pains out of the way before it's too late. Some other thoughts... - Mularkey without question made the correct decision on punting. With a 1 or a 2 point lead maybe you try the low % FG - MAYBE. 4 or 7 point lead they need a TD either way. Not that much of a difference IMO - if we can't stop that crappy QB from going 80 yards we don't deserve to win. What would our chances have been anyway going into OT after that drive if we were up 7? Besides, the field position difference is a MINIMUM of 17 yards if you assume the worst case scenerio of a touchback vs. a missed FG. That's a big deal when there's under 2 minutes left. If they don't come down with a miracle catch on 4th down, that decision to punt would've saved the game. - If you're looking to blame coaching, I would question two things: 1) Why don't you double the opponent's best WR on 3rd&14. 2) Why do you run a fancy reverse on 1st down when you're moving the ball. Same thing with the flea flicker vs. the Colts in the preseason. Those things are drive-killers. Reserve those plays for when the offense is struggling (there will be plenty of opportunities for that) not when you actually have a drive going. One positive is that Jerry Gray may have had more to do with the defense last year than I thought. Good blitz packages & some nice pressure from Posey. Although I'm a Travis Henry guy, McGahee has a couple of things over him: Better vision, and the ability to always fall forward when he's tackled. Hard to complain about the officiating overall in this game, but did anybody see the holding penalty on Villerial? That was KILLER. CBS of course didn't show it. Memo to Nate: when the coaches are preaching turnovers in training camp, they're not talking about a 40 yard pass on 4th & 14. Knock the ******* ball down.

The 49ers may or may not be the worst team in football, but I still don't like the idea of laying 3.5 on the road with a team (ATL) that has a decent chance of sucking. I will go along w/ the Pats -3. The revenge factor never helps the Colts. They're a very mechanical team. They always beat the same teams, and they always struggle with the same teams. They're a team about matchups, and they don't match up w/ NE. I also like Baltimore -3 @ Cleveland and Washington -1.5 vs. Tampa.

That's an excellent point, and the reason I'm taking the Rams as well. I don't think they're that good this year, and plus, when I look at their schedule, they have no gimme's after week 1, other than maybe SF at home.

I can go over the reasons again why I think the Jets will finish last, but... In this day & age of "win your division or bust", the only teams I'm concerned with are Buffalo & New England. We have to get better and NE has to get worse for the year to be a success. If the Jets (or Phish for that matter) surprise everybody and sweep us - then so be it - we just doesn't deserve to go anywhere, because honestly, those teams just aren't that good. On another note, I have concluded that the early season schedule is not favorable at all. We almost HAVE TO sweep that 3 game stretch of NE, NYJ, and Miami. That is - if your goal is to split w/ NE and go 3-1 vs. Miami & the Jets, winning 2 of those 3 may not be good enough since 2 of them are at home and the road game is vs. the Jets, who IMO, will be the least difficult team to sweep.