Tasker

I thought it was double coupon day in the Meadowlands. Yeah, what you said.

Yeah, clearly he is behind KT, and we have played so many close games the last couple weeks there has been no room for getting your feet wet late in games if you aren't the best option available. I hope this is not an indication of his ability, and I would really like to see him on the field before the season is over. But if seeing him practice day in day out DJ doesn't think he is better than KT then that isn't necessarily a good sign.

And with the #22 pick of the 2008 draft the Buffalo Bills select...

Maybe he can pass big against the prevent D like Leinart! I would like to see JP pass for more yards, the run game gain more yards, the run d give up fewer yards, and the pass D give up fewer yards. Mostly I would like to see our 7th win of the season against the Jets on Sunday and the team continue to progress. I think he showed with his first quarter in Texas that his passing numbers can be anything that the gameplan and protection allows, and I would love to see more from him, but smart decision making is the #1 thing, even if that is a few fewer yards.

FYI #1: JP will be our starter in 2007, and whoever we take in the first round will also start. We will not take a QB in the first round, because it is very unlikely we can start two QBs effectively. FYI #2: Mock drafts are not close to accurate weeks before the draft, much less half a year (but I read them all anyway). FYI #3: The national media including this particular site have no idea about the way Marv and Dick think, and they really don't care. For main news stories only the top 10 teams count (which we aren't) and for draft boards only the top 10 picks count (which we aren't). Even when we were at #8 last year and somewhat more predictable just a week before the draft NOBODY had us taking Whitner and many had us taking Justice and Bunkley (and others). I think that people on this board (me excluded) actually know more about the Bills than the national media, and I'm much more interested in what our experts think than what the national media say. But thanks for the link, and I will keep reading all of the mock drafts and stuff, but always with a large grain of salt.

Now that we can't compare him to RJ (he is durable, has guts, has won some last second games, and statistically blows away RJ), we have to look for a new comparison? Let's just let him be Losman and hope when all is said and done people will compare other young quarterbacks to JP and mean it as a compliment. I'm enjoying the fact that we aren't talking about Brady Quinn anymore both because of JP's play and because of our record (again JP's play).

If there is a better player, I'm still for putting O-Line over D-Line, especially with McCargo coming back. I'd still like a D-Lineman, but not #1 unless he is really an exceptional talent and better than the other positions available at our pick. That said we have to balance our needs vs. what is available. I think I'd be fine upgrading LG, RG, or RT with Peters and Fowler being locks right now. The question is which of those best helps our team for the future? Gandy is what he is, and probably doesn't have a lot of gas left, but has seemed okay at guard. Pennington has shown potential, especially in pass protection, and is young and talented. Right now I think RG is our #1 priority, with Preston moving back to multi-position backup. But of course if the best tackle available is better than the best guard available, I'd rather have the better player. That said, I would be very happy with Long joining our team, and think he could be one of the top options if he is available. Who is the better starter in people's opinions based on the last month or so? Preston at RG or Pennington at RT? I personally think it is more likely that Pennington could be the star in the making than Preston, given that Preston has been around without making an impact or stealing a spot, and Pennington is younger with more physical skills. What do you guys think?

Well, I have already changed my nickname in the Chat Room, and probably should do so here as well since he is working for CBS, but a couple dumb comments as a color guy don't erase a decade of amazing special teams plays. And I agree with the above comment that keeping playoff dreams alive is always a great thing, but this team just playing good football and winning is the biggest key, because most of these guys are going to be back and be better next year, and 8-8 would be a tremendous achievement for this team and an indicator of a very bright 2007. I'm sorry for the crowd who thinks there are no moral victories, only super bowl victories, because we aren't going to win it this year, but making progress towards getting to the playoffs next year and winning it in the coming years is what the rest of this season is about.

Yep, way too early to consider either of them a bust. McCargo would be less of a bust in my mind at this point because he was taken lower and is out with an injury. Either of them has the ability to develop into quality football players, or the ability to not develop and never be more than a backup /role player. I like that the guy we picked at #8 was already a quality football player, and not a project with talent. But we need McCargo to start to be an impact player in 2007 and 2008 for that pick to work out. Based on what I know, I'm pretty confident it will happen, and everyone will be happy with the pick next season.

I've been alarmed with the run left stuff, and have tried to figure out how good Pennington is as much as I can with Tivo. He doesn't seem bad or incapable when they run that side, but appears to be focusing more on pass blocking which has been working out pretty well (although the INT that ended in the Royal forced fumble was Pennington's fault as he backed into JP without having anyone to block). I don't have enough of a read on Pennington yet, but greatly hope he can step up and develop into something special. I see our biggest priority being a dynamic right guard, because that has been a weak spot and Preston is more suited to a multi-position backup. I put D-Tackle second behind RG our wish list, but we would have to expect McCargo and Triplett to be pretty high in the rotation, so anybody who bumps Kyle to 4th and gets Anderson off the team will help. I would of course love to see someone special join the team and push McCargo and Triplett to 2nd and 3rd if that player exists, but our run d will be better with McCargo back and one solid player added. If we can then upgrade at LG or RT because we have a better player available I'd like that too, but view it as a lower priority than RG and DT, and possibly a couple other positions.

If we hit the last weekend at 8-7 and some of the other stuff has gone right, I'll worry about this. Right now our #1 goal has to be just winning against the Jets. I think (as I have from the start of the season) that playoffs aren't happening this year. That doesn't mean I don't expect to somehow win each game, and that I don't wish for the playoffs. But right now I want to be a 6 win team so we can start thinking about 7. The Ravens could very well have things locked up for the last week and rest people (flashbacks of the Steelers), which could make this week's game the hardest of the four, but I don't think we are consistent enough yet to win out. I like still being alive mathematically and playing teams tough and progressing. If we can keep these hopes alive for another week, that is even better for our team's future.

Tripplett...solid veteran Williams...enjoyable spark, but hasn't really shown the ability to be an above average football player and is currently not doing a terrific job. Solid rotational backup maybe, but not an impact player McCargo...absent and unknown, but I'm putting high expectations for him to be an impact player, otherwise he was picked too high Anderson...not an impact player, and I will be kind and not elaborate. Hargrove...not his position, but he has been fun on passing downs. I'd rather see him at end more next season where he belongs. So we need a rotation of four, and we have 1 good and 1 backup and one not so great. Seems pretty clear this is a talent gap. Getting McCargo back at full strength and Kyle with a year's experience is good, but Anderson needs to be replaced, potentially with a high impact / high resource player. So in the end I agree that we only need 1 addition with a healthy McCargo, but that addition has to be a very good player, not just a plug in.

The #1 thing we are missing is personnel. I like Kyle Williams as a backup or in a rotation, but he isn't a stud, and I think that is a position we need to have a stud playing. We also have some learning from the linebackers, who are talented, but also dealt with the whole Spikes situation (hopefully over by training camp and back to the old TKO? Or broken for good?). Clearly our run defense is failing and a major concern. Will a healthy McCargo a healthier Spikes, and the whole team having a year of experience with the system help? Yes. But we might have to make some other personnel adjustments. I'm hopeful about McCargo who the team thought very highly of, but I think one key is having one of the best football players on our team line up at DT next to Larry, and that hasn't been the case with Tim Anderson and Kyle Williams to this point. I think the system is definitely good enough to win championships, but it depends on the talent. Right now Indy is struggling a lot against the run too, and we should probably take a look at what is working for the Bears and not for Indy to better understand it, because it's difficult to look at your own team and a team in the first year of a system and be objective enough.

I agree overall with your assessment of the three plays, and consider the decision not to throw the red flag on the Hargrove fumble recovery an even more serious error. I don't agree that the means he is a bad coach and can't have a great long term future. He has done a great job of having effective gameplans which have allowed us to compete with more talented teams (Indy, San, NE). We are young and learning a new system. I would love 6-6 or 7-5 right now, but realistically he has achieved both in progress and in the actual record of the team at this point. He has his guys playing their butts off for 60 minutes, learning the system and improving, and on track to continue to grow into a playoff team that can try to win the Super Bowl. I see some of his faults, and would rather have a Belichek mastermind (who wouldn't), but I think he is a very good coach for Buffalo, and that as his first three years unfold more people will agree. Hopefully he can progress as well on some of the annoying timeouts and other questionable decisions, and I think he is the type of person to do that.

Yep, I can only think of the in the grasp/down one he admitted was wrong about, and that is a tough area this year across the league. I think the officiating cost us a great deal, but I think Ed is probably the best ref in football, and he didn't make the biggest mistakes of the game, notably the pass interference non-calls.

That's what I thought at first too. Look again. He was going to get met head on by #54 at or before the first down marker who was coming like a freight train. It looked open on the TV angle and I almost threw my remote at Willis, before deciding instead to use it to back up and watch the play several times. I was looking for evidence that Willis was an idiot and blew it, and instead I found evidence that Willis probably would not have had it, and did an extra move which almost worked.

We are in year 1, but I do miss the Ted Washington Pat Williams Sam Adams kind of lines. I think one of the issues is that the linemen in this d need to be agile and fast. We have read that as "small" since there aren't too many agile 330 pounders, but I think we are too small and not athletic enough right now for this to work. I would love to see McCargo emerge as a dominator, or us find another fit who can be a more physical presence without losing the speed that is needed for the scheme. I definitely don't know quite enough about football to know if modifying or abandoning this scheme makes sense, but I think that learning it and improving some personnel will help us EXECUTE it better. And if we keep giving up 180+ rushing yards we are going to have to do something. I guess I would want to ask some of the more knowledgeable football minds here what would happen if Pat Williams replaced Kyle Williams and the scheme remained the same? Would it fail because he couldn't move quickly to do what he is supposed to do and the whole thing falls apart? What about (for example's sake) Ngata who was renowned for his speed and agility for a man his size? Or does the penetration aspect of our scheme actually prefer someone to take less space so they can fit through the gaps, instead of taking more space so the running back can't fit through them?

I disagree. Momentum and emotion are big. That's part of the reason that the home field advantage exists...it isn't all about strange turf or uncomfortable hotel beds. I do not fault JP at all for the timeout. But Dick should have made it moot by throwing the flag before that point (even though he would have lost), and if he didn't, he should have gotten enough info from the booth to not waste the second timeout challenging it, since it was clear what happened, and with time it was just a case of knowing what happened and what the rule is...very little to judge.

I was screaming at the TV (the one day all year it is better to be a Bills fan in San Diego than at home in Buffalo) at Roscoe. Very bad play. Similar to staying in bounds when you have a chance to get out of bounds in that situation. Forget the fumble part since time had expired. He should have gone down when first hit and called timeout. Four seconds on the clock when he would have been down by the way. He gambled our three points for a slim chance to take it to the house for 7, and lost. I don't know that that was the difference, because you don't know how the second half unfolds with a different score, but it sure didn't help.

There is no anti-buffalo conspiracy. There were bad calls, and they all seemed to go against us this game. I did see the game, with Tivo to review the plays in question: 1) Hargrove recovered. I blame Dick for not challenging us. It cost us 7 points as the field position game let them get a short field touchdown before half on their next posession. 2) Price was forced out and should have been ruled that. His toe was in and he heel was out, which I guess means out (new rule to me), but he was pushed more than four inches worth. 3) Cleary interference on the 3rd down play in the 3rd quarter. JP was not ruled down on the completion / sack. He was ruled in the grasp. Bad call in my judgement, but he was being grasped and the whistle blew. Had nothing to do with him actually being down. All of this could have been made up if they had somehow blown the onside kick call and missed the ball being touched (but I'm sure a review would have fixed that anyway), or if any other significant call went in our favor, but when you lose a tough one with all the calls coming up tails for you it is very frustrating. Also on the first half PI not called, there was a ball that they said might have been uncatchable and that was why no flag. It was definitely catchable, and should have been a flag. And the impact is deeper than the individual plays. If the dbs are being flagged, they get more apprehensive and back off a little creating more space.

For better or for worse, the current defensive scheme is designed around quicker linemen (often referred to as lighter, but I don't see any reason a bigger super athlete couldn't do it even better than a smaller one if speed is comprable) to penetrate and disrupt, and I don't see us shifting that significantly in the immediate future just as the team is getting the system. Maybe some modifications and getting some better personel, but Ted, Pat, and Sam (all of whom I loved) can't do the job that Dick is asking, and that isn't going to change suddenly. On the plus side, teams spend so much time running all over us that they forget to pass at times.

I don't think it was a stupid play to challenge. I think Dick should have thrown the red flag before JP called timeout, and at worse we would have used a single timeout for it. I also would have liked him to challenge the Hargrove fumble recovery. He doesn't have to win every challenge, but I think those are both ones where he has to grab the flag and chuck it. Twice he should have twice he didn't, and I would like to hear what he has to say when pressed on that. Not just carefully analyzing the play after the fact to see if the challenge would have been won, but at the moment they happen those are both plays to challenge, Bellicheck and Parcels and Shanahan and Holmgen would have all thrown the flag on both. I really like Dick, but he came up short on that decision making.

Adding McCargo, getting into year 2 of the system, and getting TKO back to 100% are all important. I don't know if they are enough, and I'd like to see some help at D-Line and LB, although O-Line remains my #1 focus. The good news shown in the last month is that we have fewer positions where we say "we have to replace this position no matter what". That allows us to better read the draft and free agency, and get the best talents available in the draft, and the best bargains available in free agency, instead of paying the price of having our hands tied by needs.

Let's see 197 to LT & friends (160 yards passing), 207 to the Jags (132 passing), or 188 to the Texans (223 yards passing). I don't know about you, but I think today's game was the MOST impressive by our D. We got torched by LT, and Gates killed us as well, but we still stopped them a bunch of times and this is a team hitting on all cylinders. One more play goes our way (pass interference call, Hargrove fumble recovery, four more inches on the play that lead to 4th and 3 inches, punt team runs down the game clock before kicking at the end of the 1st half, maybe even Roscoe goes down and calls time out for a 1st half field goal) and we STUN the top team in the league right now. This with Crowell going out and Wire playing LB too. And with Roscoe's fumble not costing us anything (time had expired because he kept running), and Hargrove rightfully having recovered the fumble, in a twisted reality we were even on turnovers. Our run D is definitely hurting right now, which is why we traded up to the first round to draft a tackle (an injury that hurts us right now). But when you realize that that same D is holding teams to 170 yards passing for those same three games you realize that it is a flaw that needs to be addressed, but not a fatal flaw.

I will say it again. I don't know if I'd rather have Cutler or Leinart or JP, but I like JP's odds right now. But I KNOW I would rather have JP + Whitner than Cutler or Leinart with now Whitner. I wish Cutler the best (although I don't like Leinart and enjoy Arizona losing), but I'm not looking back regretfully on anything in the 2004 or 2006 QB classes.