krazykat

So then you expect the level of play to be higher than last year's near league low standards then? You're really stepping out there, aren't you. As to field position, that wasn't the issue last year, it was our inability to move the ball from wherever we were. We were the 32nd ranked team in ball movement. We ranked 18th, average, in starting field position.

You just have to love all of these comparisons between Walsh and other coaches when Jauron has had only one winning season and a less than spectacular one at that with a corresponding thrashing by the lowest seeded playoff team in the first round.

Jauron and Fewell were both defensive backs and that's what they know. I suggested that when they took over their emphasis would be on the back 7 or even DBs just as it has been.

LMAO OK then, what parts of our game have improved then? So far Lynch hasn't given us anymore than McGahee did. Schobel clearly got worse from '06 to '07 and if that doesn't reverse itself the team will have to begin thinking about what to do with him as Ellis pushes up. You and others keep saying things like "Various aspects of our offense have improved, although things have not come together yet." Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that they haven't come together yet as our O and D both regressed since Jauron took over. Call me crazy. But aren't these statements along the lines of the "check's in the mail." As far as game planning, it will help when we finaly see our team pushing the other ones around the field instead of visa versa in spite of whether or not we can get a quasi-miracle Defensive TD and/or return TD to eek out a win against a scrub team. I think what people REALLY don't like about Jauron is that he isn't a dominant personality and doesn't yell or scream. See, that's the difference between people on your side and people on our side of this debate. I don't care if he eats nails for breakfast and hates every player on the team as long as we win. You and others keep talking about what a great guy he is, and how good the relationships that he has with his players are, and how they love, cherish, and respect him. They're not engaged, they work for the team and are getting paid handsomely to play well but aren't!

Actually, salaries/contracts have been levelling off somewhat. They went bananas from like '01 or '02 thru like '06 or so, then began levelling off. And no, the point is that we could be getting much more for the money we're spending. You guys defending this organization's moves seem to look at every move in a vacuum. You have to look at the whole "system" and ensure that you get as much as you possibly can for the money you lay out. That's what good Coaches, GMs, and Personnel guys do.

We need an auctioneer in here.

Uh oh, everyone duck. I guess that ESPN doesn't know what they're talking about now. And I find it interesting that they pair Stroud with Williams, not McCargo. For all this hype on McCargo and what a beast he's become, what, he's going to serve as a backup again this year maybe? Wouldn't that just be a kick in the groin to many here.

The real issue is that we just aren't getting value from the monies shelled out for: Kelsay Dockery Walker Think about what we could get if we could free up all of the guaranteed and other money that we spent on those guys? We could probably sign five decent linemen with people that knew what they were doing with the $100M+ that we gave them.

Red herring alert!

Yeah, and their biggest and best prospect was a huge gamble in UFA Peters that just happened to work out and wasn't a high probability chance at all. But again, that stems directly from one of two things, a philosophy that deemphasizes the lines, which is idiocy. Or, complete and utter failure in assessing linemen brought on board here. IMO it's a combination of both. Either way, it only says that those leading this team are ignorant and/or just not that bright.

Another excellent post! A & B in particular. That's clearly what we've lacked in seasons past. It almost seems as if the coaches and GMs have tried a plug-n-play approach to running the team continuing to shuffle the deck simply in hopes that at some point it will gel. Whether by FA or draftee, there has in fact been no medium range plan by anyone and this current regime continues that trend. Remember they came in and announced clearly that they were not rebuilding. OK, fine. But then in their second season they announced a rebuilding. That alone says all that anyone would want to know about having a plan, which alone makes Jauron a poor coach. They clearly had absolutely no plan coming in or until after a season was wasted and all the opportunities for an early rebuild were squandered. Now the team. meaning Jauron & Co., find itself in a position where they must balance keeping their jobs with the longer term interests of this team. If conficts arise, which of the two do we really think will take precedence. The core group of players is what Donahoe tried to bring in through free agency but failed because he brought in all has beens. Otherwise, let's pin the failures for our inabilities to assemble a core group of players where the majority of it should be placed, the same personnel guys (Modrak, Guy, Majeski) that Donahoe brought in, are still here, and that have failed many times already. The closest thing we have to a core group of good players is Whitner, Poz, and McGee on defense. Schobel's got one foot out the door and there isn't another impact player on D pending how Stroud plays, but he's a newbie FA. Poz isn't even a given. Offensively when your LT is the core you have issues. Edwards hasn't proven a thing. Lynch is solid but again, now with character issues for which it remains to be seen how it impacts his second and most critical season. Evans is gone for anyone that can see the writing on the wall, unless we light it up this year I suppose, but who wants to put any money on that happening. There is no core and there hasn't been and our best players all end up seemingly either getting the boot or getting so pissed off at the franchise that they just see red and want to leave, now with JP and Evans. Not that JP is necessarily good however. The draft is where you get value for your money outside of top 15 picks or so, which may or may not provide value although the odds are against it. But you have to get something for your drafts, and barring those in development, we've hardly gotten anything from them and what we have has been more by accident (Peters, McGee as a KR), than by solid draft planning resulting in primarily failures. (Mike Williams, Parrish, Everett, Losman, Youboty, McCargo?? as a 1st-round trade up, Tim Anderson, Josh Reed, Ryan Denney, Coy Wire) Those were all day one picks that haven't come close to living up to their statuses with several having been traded up to get. You just can't draft like that and expect much. OR, it could be the coaching and/or both.

That's also a bunch of rot too. It's clearly a part of how to build a team. You're right inasmuch as the draft should be your element of stability for future generations of your team, but FAcy is a very important element of building a team. Otherwise, aren't you one of the ones talking about how good we will be? With almost nothing but FAs as the primary part of our "building" this year, why do you anticipate positive results if that's no way to build a team? Stroud, Mitchell, and Johnson are our biggest acquisitions and most definitely the ones expected to make the most immediate impact. All free agents. Unless you're one of those not expecting much this season, your logic appears to be inconsistent.

How do you know we're making progress? It's not being manifested in our records. What do we want out of a coach? How about strategy and game plans that see to it that our team wins in the trenches and can move the ball and put it across the goal line like we should. Call me crazy. And you say we're making progress. I mean to you being dead F last in the NFL in offensive scoring with a defense ranking almost that low is "making progress?" I have no idea what "good" is in your mind, but if that's "making progress" then your standards are ridiculously low. And you say the players are "playing hard" for Jauron. Other than being just another cliche, what you're saying is that they play hard and still lose and can't move the ball or stop opposing offenses. I mean listen to what you're actually saying here. You sound like one of those guys on the Sunday football shows just blathering on to keep the audience's interest. It makes no sense whatsoever when weighed against the facts though.

I don't think you'll have to worry about us having a winning season. If Losman starts, maybe.

Very nicely summed up!

He definitely needs more than good coaches do.

The guys doing the rebuild, Jauron and Marv who was supposed to have all this wisdom, should have thought about that back during the offseason of 2005, not now. They should have had plans A, B, and C in place. They had plan A with Losman who got a shot with a fraction of what Edwards now has. He failed, they drafted Edwards, not JP is PO'd and wants out, and they have absolutely nothing behind Edwards so that when he makes a mess this season they have anything to fall back on. Does this strike you as good planning, vision, and foresight and a good way to manage/run a team? They're time is up. They've purchased the ingredients, gotten several mulligans; 1. '05 not rebuilding, '06 rebuilding; 2. Two OCs, 3. Two QBs, maybe more. They now need to prepare a meal with what they have. Many of us thought that hiring Jauron was the wrong move in spades. The team and it's drone minions insisted that Jauron didn't get a fair shake and in spite of his history as a losing coach they said it was all immaterial. Well, here we are, we've had more of the same and if he can't produce a winner this year, then it's time to move on. At some point excuses have to end. Edwards doesn't have to play like Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, or Brady, but he does have to do a little bit more than lead the team to continual goose-eggs offensively. I think that's more than fair, don't you think! As to Hardy, the team's sole offensive improvement this offseason means that they saw no real issues with an offense that scored less than any other team in the league last year, had fewer plays from scrimmage than any other team in the league last year, had the 2nd to last 1st Downs, the 2nd to last 3rd down conversions, 3rd to last in points per game overall as a team, and 3rd to last in yards per game too. Well I have issues with it. I also think that what they did last year was clearly overrated. Anyway, if they need more experience, they had two years to amass it. And how many of our starters don't "have experience?" Our entire OL does. Our TEs do. Our WRs do other than the rookies. Edwards and Lynch are in their second seasons. On defense our entire DL has plenty of experience as does Crowell and Mitchell. Only Poz doesn't. In the D backfield both Whitner and Simpson are in their third seasons and McGee is a rookie. So I'm not all that sure what you mean here.

He had significantly more proven talent in Chicago and failed miserably there too. In fact, I'd say that the Bears had a better team overall then from a talent perspective. If and when McKelvin, Mitchell, Stroud, Spencer Johnson, Hardy, and Schonert step up, we can discuss talent further. But the chances of all six of those guys doing much to improve this team are slim. Jauron is a losing coach and will always be one. While this season should be disheartening again, a great side show will be listening to either the excuses here flying or people posting now about "this being our year" backtracking.

Ooo, that's a really good answer. Did you pick that up from your 7th grade classmates.

If he were the coach of the Dolphins or Jets they'd be making fun of him here talking about what a loser he is.

LOL Yeah, that's it, nice amiable post. Take all the polls you want for starters. As to it being a deep answer, IMO these things are multifaceted which explains the difference between me and several other people and the rest of the barbarian horde here. It's easy to slap down numbers 7 and 9 and call it a day at the office, but that's clearly absurd. Yet, that exactly what many people do then apparently thinking that we are the only team to have had a draft and added players by free agency and as if every move we make works out simply by virtue of us being the Bills. And yes, while we may agree that the team overachieved last year, we clearly don't agree on this year. In order to understand what to expect this year we must first understand last year and if we overachieved, where we would have been had we simply achieved to par. Because teams simply don't go from where we were last year according to my stated facts above to playoff contention. It just doesn't happen. After that, since you don't care about depth or a developed argument, I will add merely a few more things to my post above and call it a response.

Here we go with the personal taunting again VOR, eh. Since you did respond, as stated, I will too. Directed at Dave McBride, I find it hilarious that he took my assertion that my response would be deeper and more comprehensive than yours as an insult given the post that I'm about to make. Here was your original question: Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected? Here was your answer after your little hit at me removed; The question wasn't meant to ask how individual players performed, but whether, given the expectations and then what transpired, did the team perform better, worse, or the same as you would have thought. My opinion is that given the problems on offense, from Fairchild, to no real #2 WR, to a rookie QB and RB, to the injuries on defense, to Kevin Everett's injury, the Bills overperformed. Yes, very deep and thorough. LOL You then added the following about this year: That's why I think that replacing Fairchild (who at least is saying the right things), having a real #2 prospect in Hardy, Edwards and Lynch no longer being rookies, and the additions on defense and getting injured players back, not to mention the easier schedule (you can only play the schedule you're given), that the Bills will do a better than 7-9. My guesstimate is 10-6. Again assuming a rash of injuries doesn't hit again. Again, nice hedging, and after "your thoughts" are stripped away here, there's not much. But, as you said, you did answer the question and I promised to respond, so here's my lengthy reply: *************** Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected? We're talking about last year so I will address last year. When you say "underperformed, overperformed, or performed to expectations," I must state that my expectations were not much more last year than they are this year first of all. Second of all, I assume that also means underachieve, overachieve, or perform to par. I trust that that's fair. Otherwise I will simply discuss the team and its performance from a variety of angles and inject my thinking. To begin, we must find some common ground, a common denominator if you will, whether multi-parametered or simply a single indicator, it can be debated which is where much of this controversy stems from. My definition of that is how teams perform overall from a competitive angle on the grid iron. While many of you would simply sum that up as Ws and Ls, to me it means more. Ws and Ls can be misleading. We all know that teams finish the season with better or worse records than they actually are, routinely. We also all know that many times throughout a season a team can win or lose games that it didn't deserve to and visa versa. The question to me is does a team generally play such that it can win on any given Sunday without a bunch of uncommon stuff going right to help it along. I am also going to evaluate the team under Edwards since under Losman doesn't matter this season. To win games you need to do one and/or two things. First, you need to score and secondly you need to prevent the other team from scoring. (common sense) In terms of putting points on the board last year from our offense under Edwards, which means total team TD scoring under Edwards, there was not a worse team in the league than the Bills. Edwards started 9 games and the team went 5-4 with him under center. In those 9 games the offense scored: 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 3, 0 offensive TDs. That's a fact. So in five games with Edwards under center, the team's offense could not score, and the Ds we faced were not tough except for maybe the Cowboys. Another fact. In spite of that, two of the five games under Edwards that we won were games in which the offense could not cross the goal line. i.e., 0 points. In another win the offense only scored 7 points, and in a fourth, only 14. So, I don't think anyone would argue that it's a very fair assessment that it was clearly not the offense that propelled us to those wins. Otherwise, with Edwards under center, the team averaged about 1.1 TD/game. To put this into some kind of objective and factual perspective, the team that ranked 31st in offensive scoring put up 21 passing and rushing TDs or 1.3 TDs/game and ranging all the way up to the Pats who put up over 4 TDs/game. League median was about 2.1 TDs/game. Those are facts. So, last year we had the worst scoring offense in the entire league which needs no agreement. It's a fact. That stands with only Edwards under center as well as for the Bills as a whole although under JP the team scored more TDs per game. Considering that the Bills had a winning record under Edwards' guidance, we can easily dismiss the offense as the reason for any win under him besides the one over the Dolphins. As to that one, how much do we want to "pat ourselves on the back" for lighting up last year's Dolphins? As to three of the four losses under him, the team scored 0 offensive TDs in them, so clearly he shares a good chunk of the blame for those three losses. So what we have is a QB that did little to help the team win, unless you credit him for D and Special Teams performance which is silly, but contributed heavily to the team's four losses under him. None of us can fault the team for losing to the Giants. It wasn't a great performance by the Bills on either side of the ball or STs, but the Giants won the SB and were a significantly superior team. Also the one TD that we got in the second Jets game was from Losman to Evans, otherwise we win but only 6-3 and who knows, maybe the Jets score another FG and the game complexion changes drastically. So, with respect to the offense, did the team overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? They clearly overachieved because no team with an offense like that posts a winning record. If you want to argue that, feel free, but I'm out of that argument as it would be as stupid as they come. In terms of logging what they got statistically and disregarding Ws and Ls, I'd say they probably underachieved. All we heard about before the season began was how great our OL was. Lynch played well, we still had Evans and OK although far from superb TEs, but we still couldn't do much to avoid dead last in the rankings for the most part and on average to be sure. IMO Edwards underachieved. With him in the game in five of nine games we didn't score a single offensive TD. In one more game only one, and in another vs. the Jets, not a good D, only two. So in 7 of 9 games we underachieved offensively. One of the remaining two games was the Fins who were terrible defensively last year as you know. But he underachieved according to expectations, not according to how he had played at Stanford where there too he lit up poor defenses and got most of his stats against the weakest ones as a senior. So I don't expect any more than he's delivered then or last year. Sure, he will probably improve, but even one TD more is improvement and it's gonna take him making a real leap to become even average. So in that sense I suppose he achieved to par and played football the way he does. And in my book he doesn't get points for "style" or for "having poise." He either puts up yards, numbers, and performs, or he doesn't, and he didn't. Lynch probably overachieved. Lots of rookie adrenalin etc. He runs hard but has not breakaway gear. RBs like that take a beating and his injury probably had something to do with that either directly or indirectly. I think we'll see about the same going forward as he matures yet as the rookie enthusiasm wanes somewhat to counterbalance each other. It's not at all uncommon for RBs to not improve or even get worse in their second seasons. Evans and the passing game underachieved, but again, only based on their talent, not necessarily the make up of the team's/offense's talent which was and will continue to be held up by Edwards. The team IMO will be more productive this year if Losman starts. Did the OL over, under, or achieve to par? Well that depends upon your position. If you bought what the organization's FO told us about Dockery being far better than he was and Walker too, then they sure as hell underachieved because no good line "leads the way" for DFL offensive production. If you realized last year that Walker was nothing but hype and that Dockery, while solid, was no superstar G, coupled with an OL that had only Peters on it otherwise as anyone worthy of note, then they probably achieved to par given who was coaching this team. Either way, it's the same line, same RB, and same QB this year. The WRs are the same too until further notice that one of our rookies is ready to do much more than be a backup or another Robert Parrish, Sam Aiken, Josh Reed, or Andre Johnson. -------------- DEFENSE: Can we credit the D for the five wins under Edward's starts? In the Dallas game the D may have done something to help the offense, but it sure didn't stop the Cowboys from putting up almost 400 yards, after turning the ball over 6 times and still scoring 24 points. In the Cleveland game I suppose you can give them credit, although the weather had a lot to do with shutting down the strength of the Browns offense, Anderson and their passing game. If anything, the Bills with Lynch had the offensive edge there, yet they couldn't capitalize on having that edge. No argument can be made that the D played well in the Giants game, and the Giant O was good, but not that good. In the Eagles game the D allowed only 17 points, but also allowed nearly 400 net yards, mostly passing. They also got the benefit of two turnovers. The D played OK but clearly with problems when you allow 400 yards to a team that never trailed. In the wins, our D held the Jets to 14 points in the first game. Impressed? The Jets averaged 1.3 offensive TDs/game and we yielded two in this game. Including their FG kicker, they averaged 14.6 ppg, we allowed 14. Impressive? Against the Ravens we held them to 14 points. Impressive? They averaged 16 ppg on the season, and some of those games were with Heap and Ogden whom they were without in that game leaving largely McGahee to carry the O. McGahee had a very good game and they had both more net yards, more 1st downs, and more 3rd-down conversions than we did all with a second string lineup. All with Ogden and Heap out of the lineup, two perennial Pro Bowlers. So yes, I suppose they did their job, but not to anymore than teams did on average against the Ravens. Against the Jets in game two, the D held them to 3 points, a much better effort. Credit to the D, but how much? This was the second to worst scoring offense after the Bills. How about the Skins game? Not a bad defensive game, but as we all know, the Skins were emotionally down for that game. Right! Presumably we can all agree that the tragic murder death of a close friend and teammate just days earlier influenced their team. No doubt that will be out of the realm of reason for many here. Otherwise, without Gibbs' error to end the game, we may not even win that. Either way, our O didn't score a point and the D played well but not spectacularly in allowing nearly 300 net yards and 22 1st downs, average is about 18. Miami: The Dolphins got 17 on us in Buffalo in December. In 7 of their 14 other games teams held them to 17 or fewer and usually without the aid of weather or homefield advantage and rarely with both, including Oakland and the Jets. So did the D play well in wins under Edwards? Yeah, OK I suppose although arguments could be made either way, particularly considering what those Os brought to the table and other circumstances. (Skins) Was it impressive? Hardly. Otherwise, in doing what it should do, the Bills' D was terrible. We allowed the 4th most 1st-downs on the season, the most 3rd-down conversions, the 5th most plays from scrimmage, the 5th most yards-per-play too. Was this good? Yet, we were ranked 18th in points allowed. How can that be? How can we be so bad in the basic aspects of the game, like near last in just about all categories, but rank 18th in scoring allowed and with a winning record under Edwards. IMO the answer is easy, we beat the sorriest teams in the league then. The Jets twice, the Fins, the Ravens, and the Skins under extenuating circumstances. That pretty much explains it to me. Their combined W-L record total for five wins was 23-57. So did we overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? I'd say that regarding our record, we overachieved although obviously you disagree and likely will look right past all that. Otherwise, how can a team that pretty much came close to bringing up the rear in most if not all major statistical indicators for fundamental football be said to have overachieved, particularly given the talent that they had. So in the sense of actual grid iron performance, IMO they underachieved significantly. If true, then one must look no further than the coaching on that one. ----------- General/Other: Injuries: Lots of people seem to think that our injuries played a huge role in our sucking. I say it ain't so. The Ravens lost Ogden and Heap at some point. Can anyone name two starters that had the equivalent impact on their being out for us that losing Ogden and Heap had on the Ravens for example? How many actual starters did we lose and how many Pro Bowls were gone with them? Here's the list of last year's IR players: 1 96 Bryan, Copeland DE 2 92 Denney, Ryan DE 3 85 Everett, Kevin TE 4 50 Harrison, Kevin LB 5 62 Merz, Aaron OL 6 87 Murphy, Matt TE 7 51 Posluszny, Paul LB 8 81 Price, Peerless WR 9 80 Schouman, Derek TE 10 30 Simpson, Ko S 11 28 Thomas, Anthony RB 12 25 Thomas, Kiwaukee CB 13 96 Wallace, Al DE 14 21 Webster, Jason CB 15 65 Whittle, Jason OL 16 37 Wilson, George S 17 27 Wire, Coy LB So essentially then we lost two starters, a second year guy that hadn't proven anything beyond the extremely ordinary and a rookie. After that, over half of these players won't even be on the team this year. So if they were so pivotal and not easily expendable, then why are they no longer with us? But here's the kicker, our starters didn't even perform well in the first halves of games, so it's doubtful that more depth would have done much anyway. Throw onto the pile that some of those players made it through most of the season anyway and it's a foolish argument to suggest that a bunch of expendable players on IR that have since been waived really meant that much to a team that floundered with its starters in there. Most of those guys even healthy would have seen little playing time. How does this impact the over, under, or par achievement argument? I don't know, how does it? It doesn't to me. Other teams with fewer but far more significant injuries clearly took it on the chin much more than we did with the losses of the likes of Price, Whittle, Kiwaukee Thomas, Kevin Harrison, Copeland Bryan, Kevin Everritt, Aaron Merz, Jason Webster, Coy Wire, etc. At least a few would have been released anyway prior to the 53-man roster cut but just got hurt in preseason. The degree to which our injuries hurt us is entirely overstated. We'll be worse off this year if we lose on three starters but no depth. That happened to many if not most or all teams last year. ------ We finished 7-9, how? Well, aside from the above, we finished ranked 4th in TO ratio. Turnovers are a part of the game that is entirely unpredictable and something that you cannot plan for. You try to play hard, aggressive D, which we generally didn't do otherwise we wouldn't have ranked near DFL in D. Turnovers often manifest themselves simply due to luck and fortunate circumstances, not just for the Bills so keep your panties on, but for all teams. Yes, some are forced as a result of tenacious D play, but others, such as at least half in the Dallas game for us last year, are simply made as a result of a player on the other team just not playing well and within himself and not as a result of anything that a D does. (Romo) To give you an idea of how teams with huge TO ratios perform, consider that we were tied with Jax at +9. The next best team had +5 and only 8 teams were in the positive. Jax made the playoffs and was a very good team. The three teams with better TO ratios were NE, Indy, and SD the three strongest teams in the AFC last season otherwise and three of the best teams in the NFL now. So we have to ask ourselves, was our D as good as theirs? The answer is obviously no. Not even close in fact. They all played good grid iron defense, we did not. So how did we log all of our takeaways then? Great D, luck, etc.? That's a question that needs to be asked, but I will suggest that if we hadn't had the 6 in the Dallas game we'd be a +3 only, and when you look at the teams/O's that we got the rest against, I would also suggest that it's not all that impressive. From that angle I'd say we overachieved on the field, but with respect to our TO ratio of +9, we underachieved as a team since teams that generally log good TO ratios are typically much better defensively than we were and typically have records that reflect that difference. -------- Non-offensive scoring: Not talking about FGs (STs) here, but D, returns, blocked FGs/punts. The Bills finished slightly above average in TD scoring in this way. Here too these types of scores are not predictable and often rear their heads more along the lines of luck or just arbitrary timing. But a team that finished 4th in TO ratio and which was above average in non-offensive scoring, should not have a losing record IMO. So how is it that we did? Clearly something must have counterbalanced those two things going the other direction in order for that to have occurred and such that we did not post 9, 10, or even 11 wins at minimum. That something was that our O and Ds both sucked. So in essence then, we were 7-9 largely due to our team's non-offensive scoring performances, which are entirely unpredictable. And in our case, largely only contributed to wins over the worst teams in the league, and even then relying on those things to win in tight games. In the Dallas game we got more help in that way than we have since when, the '90s or '80s sometime with 3 D/STs TDs, and still we couldn't win. Why not? Because our O still could not move the ball, at all, and our D simply couldn't stop the Dallas offense when they didn't stop themselves. Has anyone ever given a moment's thought as to what that game would have looked like without 6 TOs by Dallas, or only one or two? How many yards would Dallas have had? 500? 600? more? So from that angle we underachieved as a team regarding how that played out in Ws and Ls, but from a singular statistical perspective we clearly overachieved. What that means is that we got the benefit of a lot of "bounces," but still sucked and posted a losing record. Can we anticipate that we will finish +9 again and 4th in the league in TO ratio? Who here would wager a hundred bucks on that happening? Only a fool would. How about non-offensive TDs? Same there. You just have no idea what the D and STs will score and when or whether it will even make a difference. But what we can say is that if the offense rarely scores, and the D cannot stop teams from moving the ball and apart from generating those takeaways not keep scores down, then it's unlikely that the team will do more to help itself than it did last year and in fact probably will do less to help itself in that way too. ------ Over, under, or par? We swept the Jets and Fins last season. Sure, they sucked. They probably won't be great this year either although both teams should be better just as the Bills should be. But we played close enough games against them last year and with Edwards in there only beat the Jets by three twice keeping in mind that it was JP to Evans for the sole TD in the 13-3 win. JP probably won't be playing this year. We overachieved there since it doesn't get any better than 4-0. It's also something that we would be ill advised to count on for this season. ------ Schedule: There's this notion still floating around out there that we had a difficult schedule. Well did we? At the beginning of the season it certainly seemed daunting by anyone's guestimation. But when it shook out in the final analysis, we faced the 18th most difficult schedule, below average. That was largely skewed by the notion that we played the Pats and their 16-0 record twice with the Jets and Fins as the only other teams to have had to do so. After that, we faced teams with a combined team/game record of 100-124. Teams like Cleveland and Pittsburgh and their 10-6 records were also overrated. Teams like Cincy and Baltimore were thought to have been good before proving themselves very bad. So did we over, under, or par achieve? I'd say that we got the most out of our schedule. But more importantly, consider the teams that we beat and that most of those games were close; The Jets twice, Dolphins twice, Bengals, Ravens. Those teams all sucked and if you took any one of those games individually and began bragging about a win, people would think that you're nuts. The only relatively decent team we beat was the Skins and we just don't know what impact the Sean Taylor death had on their team that day, but it's definitely no reach to suggest that the team was very down emotionally and that their hearts really weren't in the game. If Donte Whitner, Jason Peters, or Lee Evans had been shot and murdered just days prior to a game, I seriously doubt that we would make a good showing at all. That was about the impact of that and not having Sean Taylor isn't like George Wilson missing a few games at the end of the season. Taylor was arguably the best at his position in a very key position at that. ------ Summary: All in all IMO the team overachieved in terms of record but either achieved to par or slightly underachieved in terms of matching talent with the ability to move the ball, prevent the ball from being moved on us, and on other grid iron items. We stunk the joint up in terms of what football is all about and relied on entirely unpredictable plays that cannot be relied upon with regularity throughout a season, and certainly not occurring at opportune times such that they always result in a win with massive underperformance in the fundamentals of football otherwise. Can we expect that to happen again this season? No, absolutely not. Does it mean that it will not? No, absolutely not. If it does, does it mean that it will result in wins? No, absolutely not. What has to happen for us to have a winning record and for sure to make the playoffs is that this team must find its line play quickly and step it up significantly. There's no reason to suggest that that will happen on O with the OL being identical to last year's. The DL is all but the same with the addition of Stroud, but while people here are the only ones not questioning how good he will be, the rest of the league always caveats their assessments by saying "if Stroud comes back all the way" or something to that affect. Poz comes back but how good will he be? McKelvin should help, but how much? And we really don't need another returner as our return game has been at the top of the league for years. Mitchell, we'll see. He's good, but will he make much of an impact or simply provide solid starting play? He replaces Ellison who many of you here said similar things about last year. Meanwhile, Schobel ain't getting any younger. Kelsay is still a massively overrated LDE. Crowell is good but far from great. McCargo is still a huge question mark. This team will have to move from being DFL in offensive ball movement and to near DFL in similar defensive statistical categories well up into the ranks of the average or better if this team is to post a winning record. Yes, our schedule is easier this year seemingly, but many teams on it will improve. Teams like Oakland, Miami, the Jets, the Chiefs, Rams, and Niners just like the Bills can hardly get worse and most have improved on paper just like we have. We played close games against one of those teams twice last year, so none of those games are a gimme. We can count on losing to the Patriots twice and it's doubtful that we will play well enough to beat the Jags or Chargers. Jags are in the Miami heat early in the season too. The Chargers are just too good for us to beat other than once again by a host of favorable circumstances that line up for us because we can't beat them on fundamental football. They're too good on either side of the ball. I don't think we will overachieve in terms of our schedule again this year. So the question becomes one of can we, or perhaps rather will we, beat most of the not so good teams on our schedule this year. We didn't last year losing to Denver or the Eagles, and maybe even the Skins, while often barely edging some really bad teams otherwise. Yes it's Edwards' second season, but opponents also know what to expect now too. There's no more "how is he going to play" or "how are the Bills going to use him" anymore. Both Lynch and Edwards play behind a line that was clearly problematic again. Edwards will no doubt face much more pressure as the team doesn't protect him as much be design. Surely they too realize that yeah, you can see to it that your QB doesn't get sacked, but if you can't move the ball or cross the stripe, what good does that do. Defensively, while many of the teams that we play suck overall, many have good offenses. Denver should have a better O, Oakland surely will, the Chiefs definitely will, the Rams are no slouches offensively and talk about injuries, they play us early in the season too where they won't have them on O likely. Both the Fins and Jets dominated us on the field in two games and both are also likely to be better too. The Cardinals have a decent offense too at times and against poor Ds. Jauron and Schonert I expect will underachieve signaling the end of their time here whether it happens this year or next.

I will defer to your original statement: Jauron has never had anything other than below average to average talent. So now we're coming to the point of altering that to offensive talent then, ... I see. Well that changes the argument drastically then, huh. Urlacher is amongst the best all-time to play the game. Kreutz was a Pro Bowl Center and all but a perennial center since. Azumah was a very good returner. Booker was no slouch while with Chicago. They had Anthony Thomas and Leon Johnson. But moreover, they had Chris Villarrial in his prime when he was good, Blake Brockmeyer who may have not made the PB but was very good as well, and Rex Tucker too. So there are more, I just didn't list them all, and only a fool would argue that their OL was worse than ours is today. Jim Miller certainly wasn't much different, if even worse, than what we have now at QB. So I'll let the chips fall where they may, but of the list you submitted, only three players ever made a Pro Bowl: Schobel, Stroud, and Peters. Peters made one, Schobel two, and Stroud three but none in the past two seasons. Both he and Schobel have injury/age issues going forward. So if we are going to be honest here, Jauron has even less proven talent to work with here, and he should have gotten more from his team than most losing seasons and one winning season beating up a bunch of losing teams than he actually got. Their OL then was better than ours is today and their D was too overall.

Agree on Jauron although I wouldn't say "the only." Lynch is a very adequate RB for any team to make a SB run. Evans in our case is only as good as his QB, where he plays better under Losman. Peters is very good although '06 for him was better than '07. Schobel's on his back-9. Edwards, lol, well the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder on him. Good work keeping it consistent there.

See VOR, this is exactly why you have little credibility and no one takes you seriously. The silliness of equating these two doesn't even need further explanation.