Tasker

I don't really care so much about ESPN and rankings (although I do read them all), because we are going to remain underrated and unnoticed until we do something, so 3-3 after Detroit is all that matters right now. But in terms of the national media being unfair to the Bills, I wouldn't point to a ranking of Ben over JP as a rallying point. I'm a big JP fan, and hope he continues to develop and becomes a Super Bowl champion and hall of famer. But Big Ben can't have a couple rough games coming off a major motorcycle accident followed by an emergency apendectomy outweight the fact that he is an excellent quarterback and a super bowl champion.

Yeah, unlike the normally dead on predictions 8 months before the draft (or even 48 hours before the draft).

Yeah, no hate here. He never caused me any anguish as we generally held our own against the fish, and then he was funny in Ace Ventura. I'm not sure if I count since I'm technically outside city limits.

JP will have a better week in Detroit than in Chicago...write it down... Joking aside, I wouldn't be too surprised if he has a huge game. Although I'd rather it be a 16-22 2TD 230YDS and we run Willis 30 times because we have an early lead. I don't need to see 350Yds yet and hope that isn't our gameplan this week.

This game won't be a walk in the park, but if we play good football, run Willis, and don't make dumb mistakes our football talent advantage will take care of the result and we'll move to 3-3. I really am excited about getting Spikes back. I hope he's able to go and make a difference.

My thoughts exactly. Bellichek does not like headache me firsts like Moss, but a company man like Vincent probably beats having Troy Brown fill in in the secondary.

I think this will be a tough game for us, but I would have to think we are favored. Here's my thoughts on how the process went: ESPN Web Lackey: "Hey [analyst's name], we need your pick on the Bills-Lions too" [analyst]: "What? I dunno, who cares. I'm doing my piece on the Panthers-Ravens matchup. Well...Bills got crushed by the Bears, and Detroit is due for a win sooner or later and they are at home, so I'll go on that rather than any objective football insight for two teams I don't really know anything about." (repeat seven times as lackey goes from office to office)

I think it could be any of the ones mentioned, but I think I would have to give it to the Colts right now. Not because of their record or who they've played, but because I think they are the second best football team right now, and that is what the question was. I'd think long and hard about San Diego, which has a very very good defense, arguably the best payer in football running the ball, one of the best tight ends in the game, and a young QB who is living up to expectations (with a D like that and a running game, and two short passing safety valves like LT and Gates, it's a pretty easy situation for a young QB). I'm not a Marty-ball fan, and I think they can get outcoached, but they are a really good team.

Overrated by who? I'm pretty sure the national media doesn't care, and I don't think the local media is accurate enough to care about too much, so overrated by us fans? Don't break out the 1 portion tar and 1 portion feathers and look for the most deserving guy. We lost a losable game playing badly. We'll rebound and move to 3-3 in Detroit, and we will be very happy to have Schobel and McGee and Willis. We'll even be happy to have Nate (who would get my vote if I were voting).

I agree it is too soon to judge. McCargo is very gifted athletically, and if the passion is there to improve, D-Tackle is not a rocket science position where talent doesn't translate into results like some skill positions. At the moment he seems like a stretch, but judging a raw D-Tackle who came out early and missed college time for injuries after five games doesn't seem appropriate. I definitely welcome any additional insight RayFinkle might have by having seen a lot of NC State, but I personally am going to be patient with this choice, and hope that McCargo is making big plays during our Super Bowl win in a couple years.

Yeah, I was not expecting to win this game (but was hoping for an upset somehow), but this is worse than would have been expected. Hopefully they can regroup, realize they played badly against a much better team, and come out well against Detroit to move to 3-3. On the upside, we are doing a good job of staying healthy, and TKO is one week healthier than last week.

I do think that the Vincent issue, perception of rebuilding, and Spikes' injury could marginally affect his willingness to play hurt and come back to the field too soon, which many players try to do. I think this is probably of benefit to the Bills, because we need him 100% healthy for this year and beyond. But I think that the idea of silent protest or anything else is clearly not the case. TKO is an absolute warrior who can't wait to get back on the field, and when he does he will have a huge impact as one of our very best football players. If he makes it back at 100% in a couple weeks and we are 4-4 he could be the spark the team needs to pull off a couple of upsets and carry playoff hopes a little later into the season.

Willis is a star, and however long he is with us I will root for him and be thankful to have him. It shows how much of a screwup Mularkey was last year (I said it at the time) to mishandle the personality on the psychological side and mishandle the talent on the play calling side. Leading the league in rushing with our O-Line and dropping blocks like that? I love it. Now if we can get him in the end zone 2-3 times in the same game I think it will charge him up even more and he can continue down the road to entering the "Best Bills Back Ever" discussion (Before getting the responses, he's not there yet by a long shot). This team is going to be very fun to watch this year, and will be a playoff contender starting next year. It would be even more fun if they can pull a couple upsets and make a playoff run this year, but that would clearly be overachieving and beyond reasonable expectation.

Yeah, my expectation also is Baltimore resting against us. But given that the last time that happened it didn't go too well (Pittsburgh), I figured it was too soon to mention, and they would have to be favored by conventional wisdom at this point.

And that's why they play the games. I am nearly positive the Bills will never go 16-0 in my lifetime, but I still go into each game as a Bills fan expecting the victory even if a big upset. That's what being a fan is all about. Same thing about being a coach or player. Being a gambler with $1000 to put on a team in Vegas is different though, in that case you are probably best going with the Bears or refraining from the inherent riskiness of sports gambling.

So everyone had all kinds of different ideas in the preseason about how the year would go game by game. Now that we are 1/4 of the way through and it is becoming clearer how good each team is, including our own, I was curious to see what people thought about expectations for the rest of the season: Conventional wisdom would probably have: @CHI L (2-3) (+12) @DET W (3-3) (-6) NE L (3-4) (+1) GB W (4-4) (-2) @IND L (4-5) (+1) @HOU W (5-5) (+5) JAX L (5-6) (0) SD L (5-7) (+8) @NYJ L (5-8) (+12) MIA W (6-8) (-15) TEN W (7-8) (-2) @BAL L (7-9) (+13) The second number in parentheses is the change in the ESPN Power Rankings from preseason until now. Pretty useless as a whole, but giving a general idea of whether more of our schedule is better than people thought or worse. Somewhat surprisingly our opponents as a whole seem better than expected (other than Miami), meaning our schedule is actually probably more difficult than people had thought going in. So based on what I'm listing as the conventional wisdom we would expect 7-9 without any real stretches. A couple of the losses seem pretty likely at this point (@CHI, @IND, @BAL) while thee of the wins seem pretty likely (@DET, GB, TEN, three of the bottom five teams in the league at this point). That leaves six more playable games that could swing either way. I think this team is improving and growing and on the right path. I think that we can win against JAX and @NYJ from the above to have a decent shot at 9-7, which in my mind would be a huge accomplishment given how young this team is. Having Spikes come back soon and make a difference could give us a boost. I'd be interested in what other people think, and how their opinions have changed from the preseason.

Special Teams! Good time for McGee and Roscoe to show that they are in fact McGee and Roscoe. We are playing a team that is better than us in a tough road game. But if we play a good football game we can win this game, which would be a tremendous boost to our team. I view this game as pretty similar to the opener in terms of possibilities. We all know that game didn't go quite as expected even though we didn't pick up the W. I'm not rushing to Vegas to put the rent money on Buffalo, but come Sunday I'll be expecting this team to win every play for 60 minutes.

I've been staying out of these injury threads for a while, but want to put my two cents in at this point. Takeo Spikes is a superstar player, and cornerstone of our team. He recovered impressively from a incredibly serious injury only to have another mostly unrelated injury sideline him. This should be disappointing to every Bills player and fan who would rather see him on the field due to his tremendous value as a player. He is young enough to perform at an exceptional level over the next several years if his health permits it, meaning he can be a key piece of our team through the time line that we might hope to carry this core of young players to a Super Bowl win. The fact that he is unable to play so far during this building year hurts our team this season, but does not limit his value to us next season and beyond. He is clearly very committed to returning from any injury as his Achilles rehab has shown. He is not faking it or taking it easy now, and with excellent professional medical advice he is doing what it takes to get back into playing shape. As a Bills fans I too am frustrated with the one week at a time delays, and cannot wait to get him back on the field. But the biggest and most important thing is getting him back to 100% so he can be the Takeo that we need. If that happens for Sunday great. If it takes another two or three weeks, no problem.

I think we are all on the same side of this, and know it is way to soon to judge, but that he has a lot of upside. The D-Line as a whole had a tremendous game, and I would assume that McCargo helped contribute as did the others. Denney didn't have three sacks because he is the next Bruce Smith. It would be nice to hear his name a little more over the next couple weeks, but the end result is helping the D make plays and limit the opposing offense.

I don't have a problem with TKO for getting frustrated, for wanting to win, or for remaining loyal to Vincent. He didn't throw the Bills under the bus or say anything unreasonable, but was just frustrated. The good news is he is a better football player than talent evaluator (no leaving Bengals for Bills jokes here). Ko will outperform Vincent THIS YEAR, which makes it not a rebuilding step, but a team improving step helping build towards the soonest playoff appearance possible. This is a move that will get Spikes to the playoffs sooner and get him his Super Bowl ring sooner. Not having TKO in the first two games is much more of a negative than not having Vincent for the season. TKO will realize that over the next couple weeks, and step back into being one of this team's physical leaders.

I think the most important thing is that Whitner looks like a very good football player who can make a significant contribution over the next five years. Ko and Kyle look like they could be steals. Too early to tell for the others, but I'd like to start hearing a little more bang from McCargo considering his talent and draft position. Maybe he can have a big game tomorrow.

I agree with most of your comments, and definitely feel it was not the right time to take a quarterback, and am happy we took Whitner over Cutler. I agree that we had more important places to improve than QB, and I am a big JP fan (and a Whitner fan). BUT...I don't think this is a 3-13 or worse team without Whitner. Even though Cutler would be a starting rookie, the assumption for him to be picked is that he's have to be better than JP, and probably about as good even as a starting rookie. So it seems to me that the implication is losing Whitner would make us a 3-13 team. I think we are an 7-9 or better team with Whitner, and don't feel he is a four win difference all by himself.

No. You can't let a past error prevent you from making the right decision at the moment. Just like we can't skip all high pick O-Linemen because of Mike Williams...we can choose them or skip them based on how we think they can help the football team. If we were sure JP was a bust and Cutler was the real deal and better than Whitner, I would have had no problem picking him. However Cutler has to be better than JP by more than Whitner's total contribution, which I don't think is likely, and I know was not clear on draft day. It comes down to who would you rather have: 1) Cutler + JP (who would have to be cut, benched, or traded for little value) or 2) Whitner + JP, because you can't undo the JP pick. For the 2006 Bills it is no question that Whitner + JP is better, because if Cutler ends up being a whole Whitner better than JP it won't be in his rookie year, and no chance he would have been enough better to make up for not having Whitner at all. For 2007+ it depends. I think Cutler will be excellent, but I think JP will be very good too, and Whitner will be very good. It really does depend on how each one develops, but I don't think it is far fetched at all to think that JP will be at least within one Whitner (funny unit of measure) of Cutler in overall value, and JP could very well end up being better than Cutler straight up. Side note...did the redone top 10 put Vernon Davis out of the top 10? Has he not been playing well, or is that just the side effect of the shuffle? Would Detroit take Ernie Sims over him?

No, the opposite. I just wanted to see some times side by side with Mr. Hype as a reference.

In the Bo clip did Brian Bosworth really say: "many would argue that had he stayed healthy he would have probably been at least one of the top two if not three running backs in the nfl" Heck had things gone his way he might have even made it into the top four, and possibly even the top 20! Not that it matters, but does anyone know how Barry vs. Bo vs. Bush vs. other fast backs stack up in speed measurables (like the 40)?