bluv

Come on now, Anderson hasn't played that bad; as a matter of fact he and Gandy have played way better than I thought they would. Teague and Vallerial have been dissappointments and Williams has been hurt the past 2 weeks. The biggest problem with this team has been over coaching and trying to be too cute. That game yesterday called for a steady dose of McGahee and the Bills never fed him the ball. They never run the ball on back to back plays. Our OL strength is run blocking but they can never get in a rhytm. Look across the field; we shut Duece down for 3 1/2 quarters with him averaging less than 3 yards a carry. On the last drive he gained 65 yards.

You are wrong about Willis; you must have him mixed up with that back we shipped off to Tennessee! Willis is supposedly a 1000 times better blocker and receiver than he ever was and that is one of the main reasons why he was kept over that other RB as he was a liabilty in the passing game!

I've tried but my friend is a Cowgirls firend and he always tried to talk smack before the Cowgirls even got Drew about how good he was and if he played for Dallas and now 3 games init is looking good for him. He keeps dropping Flutie for Rj. I have a cousin whi is a Jets fan who thinks that Drew would be better and all this blah, blah, blah is driving me nuts when if you have watched us play every game like I have it is obvious that Drew wasn't getting it done for us plain and simple; I mean these stats don't lie!

Especially Dallas fans? It gets so annoying hearing outsiders (sometime insiders)act like Drew was a Pro Bowler and how we threw our season away, and that Drew would be much better and he'd never pass for just 78 yards and blah,blah,blah! Now while I can't debate whether Drew could do worse than Losman the past 2 games (it can't get much lower), if you look at these stats the past two seasons they would then see and understand why we had to go in a different direction. Even if Drew passes for 5000 yards in Dallas, we can only go by what he has done for us the past 2 seasons and the second half of 2002. In the last 2 seasons, he only had 1 game where he passed for over 300 yards, FIVE GAMES where he passed for under a 100 yards, 4 games where he threw 3 or more picks. 15 games he passed for under 200 yards. And look how many games he completed less than half of his passes; combine that with 43 turnovers over this same period. Now if Losman put up numbers like this for 2 years then I'd be ready to go in a new direction but I would cut him some slack for he is a young QB. Drew wasn't getting any better in Buffalo. He came in 2002 motivated to prove the Patriots wrong like he has done in Dallas so far. But once he got comfortable and lost his drive then what could you do but go in a different direction with a young QB with potential? So if anybody else comes up and attacks you with this we should have kept Drew nonsense, smack them in the face with these stats: 2003 | Drew Bledsoe career stats | 2003 Buffalo Bills | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ | WK OPP | CMP ATT PYD TD INT | RSH YD TD | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ | 1 nwe | 17 28 230 1 1 | 2 0 0 | | 2 jax | 19 25 314 2 0 | 1 0 0 | | 3 mia | 10 25 98 0 2 | 2 9 0 | | 4 phi | 27 43 296 1 0 | 2 0 1 | | 5 cin | 19 35 211 1 0 | 1 0 0 | | 6 nyj | 24 40 202 0 1 | 1 0 0 | | 7 was | 19 26 244 1 1 | 3 7 0 | | 8 kan | 23 34 153 0 3 | 1 0 0 | | 10 dal | 17 34 104 0 0 | 0 0 0 | | 11 hou | 15 26 184 0 0 | 1 2 0 | | 12 ind | 15 28 135 0 1 | 3 5 1 | | 13 nyg | 19 29 252 2 0 | 2 -1 0 | | 14 nyj | 9 15 72 1 1 | 3 5 0 | | 15 ten | 17 30 168 2 0 | 0 0 0 | | 16 mia | 12 24 114 0 1 | 1 -1 0 | | 17 nwe | 12 29 83 0 1 | 1 3 0 | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ | TOTAL | 274 471 2860 11 12 | 24 29 2 | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ 2004 | Drew Bledsoe career stats | 2004 Buffalo Bills | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ | WK OPP | CMP ATT PYD TD INT | RSH YD TD | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+ | 1 jax | 17 26 153 1 0 | 3 -4 0 | | 2 oak | 13 24 198 1 1 | 0 0 0 | | 4 nwe | 18 30 247 1 1 | 1 -15 0 | | 5 nyj | 16 29 197 2 1 | 2 5 0 | | 6 mia | 15 28 212 1 0 | 0 0 0 | | 7 bal | 20 37 203 0 4 | 0 0 0 | | 8 ari | 8 17 81 2 0 | 1 0 0 | | 9 nyj | 18 30 184 1 0 | 4 16 0 | | 10 nwe | 8 19 76 0 3 | 1 8 0 | | 11 ram | 15 24 185 3 1 | 3 -2 0 | | 12 sea | 25 37 275 1 3 | 0 0 0 | | 13 mia | 19 30 277 4 0 | 1 7 0 | | 14 cle | 12 27 100 1 1 | 1 0 0 | | 15 cin | 15 30 183 1 0 | 2 13 0 | | 16 sfo | 21 32 172 1 0 | 2 9 0 | | 17 pit | 16 30 189 0 1 | 1 0 0 | +----------+--------------------------+----------------+

In the 1st two games I think the O-Line did a good job of pass protection. I mean even though tampa shut us down, the pass protection wasn't all that bad; I mean they got 2 sacks and one was because JP ran out the endzone. And Sunday we had a banged up right side of the line as Williams didn't play and Villareal; well we don't know what is up with him. I know people want to blame the line for it has been a problem for years and since they had a bad showing against ATL this topic resurfaces. But face it, the real problem with our offense is at QB and playcalling. I will give JP slack as thi sis just his 3rd start but I mean he's got to hit the guys when they are open at least %50 of the time. And better playcalling would help, along with a TE who can stretch the field. And how about instead of having our WR just run deep routes and few comebacks how about attacking the field with slants, crossing routes etc>

I mean we threw at him at least 4 times in the 2nd half when we did pass; he got a pick and he also got lucky when the ref mysteriously picked up a flag for no reason. My point is with all the injuries ATL had at db, how do we manage to find the best db they had on the field and go after him? That is what puzzles me about the Bills: if we were in that same perdicament ATL was we'd given up 700 yards passing and 7 TD's. The way those dbs were playing 10 yard off you mean to tell me we couldn't exploit that more? It seems like the opponenets can always find the weak minor link on our team but we can't ever find a way expose a major weak point on the opponenet. Does all that time the Bill's coaching staff spend in the office, 17 hour days really accomplish anything; what good is it if it doesn't show up on the field? Maybe it is a little bit too much coaching.

He got 3-4 cathces on the last drive on FIRST down when Tampa was playing prevent. In the first half on most first down the Bills came out with 2 TEs, 2RB and 1 WR; occasionly they went with a staggered I with 2 WR. They only bought Reed in on obvious passing situations. And my point is also: they never attempted to run with Reed in the game. Write it down: the Bills will not pose a threat in the passing game with the TE's and RB's we currently have as the D will double the outside guys all day. Look at it from an opponenet persepective: would you fear Campbell across the middle or Shelton/ McGahee coming out of the backfield? Maybe Willis can be a force in the passing game but he hasn't shown it yet!

Wrong! they ran 3 WR on 3rd down in KNOWN passing situations and that is where the problem lies in that we don't have ap ersonell group in which we run and pass with balance. All you have to know is that when Shelton is in it will either be a run or play action/rollout %90 of the time. When Reed comes in it is a pass play; barely do you see a run or draw from this group; the D adjust and brings in an extra DB. My point is that I still feel that we can run the ball effectively from a 3 WR set but I don't see any success passing with a 2 WR, @ back, 1 TE group as the backs and TE's are not receiving threats. This leads to predictability for one and no productivity as teams are asking us to beat them passing with this group and we can't. It's like leaving Shaq open at the 3 point line and daring him to beat you from there; some will say he is open so he must shoot to keep the D honest and the D will leave him open until he beats them. Even if he hits a few, guess who would win in the end?

While they still need to run the ball to keep balance, I think there should be more passing and running in 3 WR sets as we are not effective when we lineup with a FB, 2 WR and a TE playing smash mouth as McGahee is more a slasher than a smasher and with the FB and TE being a nonfactor in the passing game, adding another receiver would spread the D out and give JP another option on earlier downs if they decide to pass. Why wait until 3rd and long for the D to bring in another db in; let them have a lb cover our 3rd WR or bring in a db play on earlier downs so that we can dictate to the D as playing smah mouth football will hold this team back for I feel that JP has that gunslinger mentality.

You hit the nail on the head; it is exactly what I've been saying. This offense is too vanilla to move the ball against a good defensive team. Since we barely run a basic passing attack from thes formations teams know it will either be a run or play action; the opposite goes for spread formations as we rarely run from those. Until they open up the playbook and start scheming to take advantage of a foe versus just calling plays then we will never be more than a 9-7 team.

But we didn't even attempt to establish the run and when we did it was obvious based on personnell. When you combine it with the fact that Wills was dancing and not forcing his will and wearing down the D then all you have is a 3rd and long. My point is that we have to be balanced and less predictable in order to be effective. And play actions will work if the D has 8 in the box and expecting you to run.

He should have watched Cadillac run and then he'd stop dancing and tip toeing and try and run hard and thru opponenets more than just trying to run around them. He has the ability to do it. While I'm denitely not starting a Henry bandwagon trail, the one thing I did like about Henry was that he always ran hard and with effort, fighting for extra yards; something Willis doesn't always do.

...beat-up on weaker teams but aren’t smart enough to matchup with teams that stand up to us. That vanilla @$$ offense didn’t establish anything in the 1st half and it was mainly due to play calling. They left the D out to dry and didn’t give JP and the WR’s a fighting chance. I feel as though we still have bullets left in the chamber. Where are the rollouts, the playactions, and the taking advantage of JP’s mobility that we saw against the Texans? Now the Buccaneers are not the Texans so I don’t expect us to be as successful but who knows: THEY NEVER TRIED! How many times did we come out with one WR, 2 TE and 2 RB; we only have 2 healthy TE’s! At other times they came out in conventional offensive sets. If they were going to run, why not run more off tackle against Tampa’s smaller DE’s and war them down? And if Tampa was blitzing so much as some say then there blitz is PATHETIC for I think the O-line did a great job of pass protecting on the road. Simeon wasn’t even heard from until that 4th quarter sack AFTER they bought JP back in after the Holcomb series; the other was JP’s safety. He wasn’t really pressured that much. Since our pass protection was adequate the key to that game was to spread Tampa out with 3 WR as Reed was our leading receiver; with our TEs and RB being such a non factor in the passing game it is hard to have successful offense with this group if you are not commuted to running the ball. If you watched the game you’d see where Tampa just had 8 in the box on running downs and dared us to beat them deep as they sat on nearly every short pass; I was waiting all game for a double move or deep router to make them play honest and it never happened! That is what made the Texans play honest after Evans torched them. In that first game we were way less predictable. Yesterday we played like the Bills have the past few years as we have no offensive identity. What are we: a smash mouth team or a passing team? We have no formation personnel group that is balanced to play both run and pass so teams know our tendencies when they see us line up. From what I have seen I think that the spread offense will keep defenses honest and give McGahee more room to run (whenever he stops dancing!) and allow JP to play where he seems the most comfortable. This is not college; the Bills like MOST teams in the NFL aren’t good enough to lineup week in and week out and just overpower every team. Scheming plays a lot and if you don’t put guys in position to make plays then you will be ineffective. Take Josh Reed: while he has been ineffective he did show an ability yesterday he is known for: run after the catch. In his years here I have never seen a coaching staff yet take advantage of his or Moulds abilities. I feel sorry for Moulds after watching TO get big numbers in a scheme tailored to getting him the ball and putting him in position to make plays and use his abilities play in vanilla schmes that have no plan of attack. Until we get a plan of attack we will just be the plain old Bills, BULLIES who beatup on teams they can over power or outrun but loose to teams that hit them in the mouth!

Just like Madden said, he is not a DE or a NT he is a 3 gap DT. It is equivalent to Bryce paup or Posey as a 4-3 OLB; they don't suck but they aren't Pro Bowl material for they are not put in positions that take advantage of their strengths. As a result they suck in comparison to what they use to be as they don't make the flashy plays anymore.

I'll agree with all you said except that about Sapp; I'm not a Sapp fan but he didn't play bad as the Pats rushed for under 3 yards a carry and he was in on 80% of the snaps. Now the D playcalling sucked, much like the Raiders LB did in coverage or zone. If you want to point a finger look that is where it should go, not just to the most recognizable name on D...

My point exactly. I was more unimpressed by the Raiders D than impressed by the Patriots offense. I'll give the Raiders D-line and run defense much props but their pass rush and coverage was terrible and it took them too long to adjust to start putting heat on Brady.

Face it: the Raiders D played like b!tch@$ ; especially in the first half. They only brought pressure in the second half. With the Pats having no deep threat to speak of ala Randy why not bring more pressure especially since the Pats consistently let 5 recivers go out and don't leave blockers in; why let Brady sit back and pick you apart? When they blitzed they had success in the second half. It will be different when the Pats face Gray for Brady will get his jersey dirty and have to make more stick throws against tight coverage than just sitting back and picking apart a weak zone.

Yeah I know it's going to start again: when a player leaves this team everybody is going to start bashing him or acting like he is overrated or we are better off without him, or bring up every bad play he has given up; I'm suprise no one has brought up the Jaguars game yet!

The only show I watched fully was the episode in which he had AI on and it wasn't bad. I'm different than most as while I hate him as an analyst he isn't bad as a talk show host for he isn't as bold and frank and as much of an @$$hole...

So do you still have your phone line connected to your DirecTV/TiVo? If you do then you wouldn't know. According to reps who I have talked to at DirecTV there would be a lot of bothersome error messages if it is does not have a land based phone line. I may be wrong but the bottom line is: when did this become a TIVO sales pitch? Oh since 2 people said they missed work you have to be like "you better go TIVO!"? Others TIVOed the game and are still POed. My main issus is that I wanted to watch the game when it was showed; if you TIVO the game and still missed the best part of the game worth watching and now you would have to tape it again IF it is replayed.

Fezmid you just don't get it do you? What good is TIVO if you record the game to find out that half of it on the Titans training camp and Days of Just Being T.O.? Are you happy because you have one and you think that you are better or smarter than everybody else or something; give me a break! I want a Tivo/DVR but because I have migrated to cell phone and don't keep a land based phone I get one with DirecTV because they send all their daily updates via phone to be cost effective. And no there isn't a one-time setup issue; I have the NFL package as while they say that a phone line is required there are ways around that. But even if I had a Tivo I wouldn't be one more bit happy about the stunt they pulled yesterday!

How dare they claim to show all the games when they stopped the Bills/Colts game at the start of the 2nd quarter to show BREAKING NEWS of LIVE Titans training camp. First they spent 15-20 minutes talking about about TO; then they show the guys at Titans training camp stretching! And then they cut camp to show some chump walking thru the Titans players parking lot comparing their whips, rides, and wheels. Then they FINALLY come back to the Bills game with 3 minutes left in 3rd quarter and promising to re-air game today at 2. What a load of crock! I actually left work 30 minutes early to watch this game and they pull this stunt? Instead of showing all those replays of Total Access I'm sure they could fit that Titans BS somewhere else in their schedule! They should apologize to eveyrbody for false advertisement and listing; if you are not going to show it don't list it!

I was thinking the same thing; it seems as if Sharpe just talks to hear himself talk. I mean a lot of those things are mental mistakes; a lot of coaches prefer small mental mistakes for you can teach or learn proper techniques; you can't teach physical mistakes. You can improve upon some physical defiencies but you can't make a 4.9 guy run a 4.2 or leap like Vince Carter!

I agree with you; why because of his salary and the fact that he makes LT money think about moving him to LT? If Teague, Villarial, and Williams play in 2005 even matches last year then I'd feel comfortable with that side of the line. If Anderson is an upgrade over Tucker (who by the way I think did an OK job) and Gandy does an adequate job then I feel that our OL while not dominant is good enough to get the job done. I mean Price came in the last 2 years for Jennings and the OL didn't miss a beat. So by trying Teague at LT or others you need insurance in case of injuries, not just for competition. I feel that our QB will determine our fateas we have all the pieces in place to excel if we have a QB who can respond under pressure. I know JP is essentially a rookie so that remains to be seen. But hopefully he is not like Drew and needs almost perfect pass protection and 10+ seconds to scan the field in order to be effective.

Never! Williams will struggle with quick pass rushers at RE; you don't make the switch because of pay. Next year I believe Wialliams will be an above average RT but a subpar LT. If Gandy or Peters doesn't pan out I'd rather us look at other FA such as Verba rather than switching Williams or Teague to LT for I feel that from LG to RT we will be at least adequate so why mess with chemistry. I'd rather the Bills give a look at Tucker, Preston, or even Lawrence Smith at LT than to move these guys around if Gandy or Peters flop.