Tasker

Absolute agreement that we have bigger problems than the #3 quarterback, and if we can get any value for the future for him, I would make the deal. I would have considered cutting him as well, so that he doesn't have ANY hit on our cap after this year. We can afford a cap hit right now, so getting rid of him now keeps him from having a negative impact in the future. If we didn't have Nall, I might want him around, but I like Nall, and JP will start 16 games anyway.

There is a big difference from a pessimist with unrealistic expectations and an optimist. The former aims high and cries when it doesn't happy. The second aims high, and adjusts expectation and sees the positives if it doesn't end up so high. I'm hoping for us to be a very competitive football team, and the big surprise of the year. Not going to go 15-1 and have homefield through the playoffs, but there is no reason we can't start the season wanting to 10-6 and adjust down expectations if we aren't going to make it. I can be very happy with a 7-9 season if it is the right 7-9 building for the future. The goal is to win a Super Bowl, and I want this core to do everything they can to get there in the next 3-4 years, starting with a good 2006. As I've said in previous posts, since 2000 37% of teams coming off of 5-11 seasons have won 10 or more games the following season. Not impossible odds historically, so expecting 6-10 just so you don't have your spirits crushed seems a little defeatist and depressing.

Okay, but let's not let Peter King cause a speculative revolt among fans calling for Vincent's cut. Troy so far has handled everything well, especially with Ko who will take his starting job within the next 17 regular season games, has been a veteran leader, and is a quality guy. He is going to be an important part of helping the young D develop, and hopefully if he loses his starting spot he can handle it as well as Bledsoe did with Brady. I can't imagine anybody rooting for Holcomb at this point, but trading Holcomb to the Colts for an 8th round pick ( ) would make me happy at this point, and force King to find something else to write about.

Finally seeing the game, I was very happy with Willis, and still think he is going to have a monster year. On two of his losses, Gandy seemed to get beaten, and there wasn't much Willis could do. On the counter to the right he needed to cut back to the left and it would have been a TD, but without seeing that the play was too well covered by the Lions to get much. On his other runs he looked great, fast, patient when needed (on the TD), quick when needed. Very impressive running, and I hope we find a way go get the ball into his hands 25+ times a game. JP did very well, and demonstrated success on something that is his weakness (the short accurate passing game), although I wasn't very impressed with a couple of his actual throws (great catch on by Price on the first one that was tipped and could have been an INT). 5 for 5 in short passing was a great excersice for JP and refreshing to see, but not the gameplan I want to see throughout the season. I thought our D looked good (obviously not a lot of plays by the starters, and the Lions are pretty inept), but looking closer with Tivo at how they were moving and swarming and penetrating. I think we have enough confidence in our secondary and linebackers that if the line can do what they are supposed to do with their speed and penetration our D can be very very effective.

Unless on the first punt return Fast Freddie goes back and to the left...back and to the left...then we will know there is a conspiracy.

The negative nellies are right. Vegas should not put the Bills as a favorite. The Patriots are a better team than the Bills, and are playing at home. But I think Bills fans and Bills players should expect to win. If things go badly the Pats are good enough and precise enough to tear us apart. But the Bills have talent, and some big play talent, and games can always turn on a couple plays. If we can win the turnover game, I think we can win this game. I think the game turns around two things: 1) JP not making big mistakes 2) Our D-Line stopping their running game (because as good as Brady is, I think our secondary out talents their WR core, and their passing game will not be the key) I think both of these things could come up Bills positive, and if they do the Bills can win. Remember, Holcomb was a play away from winning at NE last year (but couldn't look past the chains on 4th). We are better than we were, and they are worse than they were. Bills 24 Patriots 17

I don't think it will be a big deal, but it certainly didn't seem to hurt in the other direction when we 31-0'd them after picking up Milloy.

I think 10-6 is very optimistic, but I appreciate the optimism. This team is young, has flaws, and has uncertainty in some places, but it has lots of talent, and overachieving by JP and the O-Line could go a long long way to causing this team to exceed the expectations. This team could finish 6-10 or 10-6. I think a more likely outcome is in the middle, and can be a good building year. But until we've lost our seventh game, I think 10-6 is a nice target for any Bills fan (please no 16-0 jokes here, I'm somewhat serious). Let's go beat New England (Holcomb was one play away from it last year, and the Bills are better and the Pats weaker, so why not?), and then we can try to go 9-6 the rest of the way.

Yes, Parrish is better than Smith. If we had cut Parrish, the Patriots would have picked him up even faster. Cutting Smith was the right choice for us, and does not make use a weaker football team. But since it addresses an area of concern for NE, his signing could improve their team (although I think more for depth than for people who play). Don't worry about getting outsmarted by the Pats, which I think is the focus here. We have areas where we are stronger, and they are weaker, and they would gladly take our castoffs...just they way the talent is split.

I like it. Then we can be forgotten about and just play football. I guarantee we are not 30th at the end of the season, but I actually enjoy being underrated before the season starts.

Okay, let's all agree that preseason stats and results are a very weak measure of anything. Good, now we can move on. JP has looked good and showed some signs of improving the things he needs to work on, has shown flashes of brilliance and his big time talents, and has shown frustrating bad decisions and bad execution on some plays. How will all of this add up to his development as a quarterback? I think he has shown vast improvement on his reads, his pocket presense, and his decision making. He is young and is going to make some mistakes, but in my judgement from what I have seen this preseason, he is going to have a solid year and has a good chance of developing into a very good quarterback.

My 74 year old uncle had the same Achilles surgery, and he was out playing Tennis again within a year. Tough to get back, and impressive to do so, but basing Spikes on Cowart is like basing Spikes on my uncle. You never know until you see it on the field over time, but I think TKO will be just fine.

I was surprised as well. It's a little sad that 8-8 is considered "high hopes", but that's the reality of where we are. An 8-8 season with all our young players and new schemes would be a solid season to build on.

Yes please. I hope we follow the line of reasoning that San Diego is doing with Rivers. Run the damn ball. JP throws a great deep ball to keep the defense honest, and can do a lot more. But I think that if we get the ball to Willis as often as possible JP will be better able to succeed, and our team will do better as a whole. I'm a very big JP fan, so I'm not going to touch the main question of this thread about how good he can be, but it is important to be patient and let JP play 16 games. We've decided (rightly so) that he is our best option for this year, and there is nothing that can be gained by changing our mind before the off season. It is worth noting that we are going to get mistakes out of him, but that happens with quarterbacks. Over their careers Favre has averaged 18 INTs, Brady 13, and Manning 14. Favre and Brady have both averaged 4 lost fumbles. So lets realize that if JP throws a pick a game and loses the ball every couple games, he isn't a failure. What he needs to do is not let those turnovers get out of hand, and get his completion percentage up around 60%. I think he can do that and help the Bills be successful in 2006.

I don't mind when Mike and Mike say 5 wins, because it should be well understood that they don't really know anything, but it really bothers me when some of our members say the same thing. This team could easily have won more games last year with the perfect storm of things going wrong, and is a much better team this year, as good or better at virtually every position. I will talk to all you 5-11 guys when we win our 6th game of the year, and that won't be the last weekend of the season either. BTW, putting the @Jets game as a probable loss seems a little far fetched and premature as well. I'm not a football guru, but try to follow what I can. But a lot of you guys sound like a guy who got his heart broken in high school and is scared to talk to girls anymore because of it. I don't mind different honest appraisals, but there is so much mopey pessimism out there among Bills fans. Losing does not make you a loser. Expecting and accepting losing makes you a loser. Go Bills.

But the man knows how to cover a kickoff or a punt...

This is a football game we could win or lose. We should not be the Vegas favorite as we are a young unproven team with weaknesses going up against the dynasty and playing in their house. That said, these two football teams are not as far apart as people think. If we lose it is not the end of the world or our season, but I'm going in expecting to win. It doesn't hurt if some other fans want to set themselves up to not be let down through pessimism, but I sure hope that the coaches and players are all going in with the expectation of winning. Don't jump off a bridge after if a win doesn't happen, but preparing for an ass-kicking seems a little wierd.

No flame wars here please. Talk about the Bills, or make jokes (the Jauron moped one is a great example of how to get the job done!), but no starting a personal attack like this. Especially when the joke fat girl comment was in no way an attack against you, just a funny way of saying that after the Mularkey crap we've all gone through you don't have to be Vince Lombardi to feel like an improvment.

I look forward to Nall playing well and moving past Holcomb on the depth chart. I don't think there is much chance he can catch JP unless something really exaggerated happens. If there was any chance of that, he would have gotten more snaps already. I wish him great success, and would consider him among the candidates for our 2007 job this winter if JP does not work out. But this season JP gets 16 starts if healthy.

Of course not. I was just joking around by people overreacting to preseason performances and preseason stats. But I look forward to Dante stepping up and making some great plays as well.

Let's not kid ourselves. Neither Leinart nor Cutler has made the plays that JP has made. Either of them could be better, JP could be a bust and we could all hate this draft, but not based on anything we know now or that Marv should have known on draft day. Here is the very simple math for 2006: Whitner + JP > Leinart + JP and Whitner + JP > Cutler + JP So you are counting on Leinart or Cutler being better than JP in 2007 and beyond by enough of a difference to lose a guy like Dante. Could happen, but I don't think it will. All drafts have this kind of uncertainty, but I'm getting bored with Marv and the Bills getting ripped every time Cutler or Leinart completes a preseason pass. By the way, last night Bunkley had no tackles and one assist, and Ngata had no tackles and one assist. Will this draft go down for the Ravens and Eagles as the Kyle Williams draft? Does everyone focus on the 2000 draft as the Tom Brady draft? Even the Patriots because they passed on him five times and could easily have missed him had Cleveland not opted for QB Spergon Wynn 16 picks before Brady? No. The draft is unpredictable. Brady in the 6th round and Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, etc, etc, all taken in the top 5. So I don't think that Cutler or Leinart over Whitner is a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination, and for now I'm very happy with our draft.

A quicker line with a coach who doesn't say willis has to stay inside the tackles plus a lighter faster willis? I see a lot of 8 yard runs to the outside. I'm very optimistic about this line run blocking. The pass protection is a little more suspect, so I think we will all appreciate JPs mobility over a Bledsoe, and I think that we will have to use the tight ends and Roscoe to get a passing game that doesn't depend on lots of time. But when the protection is there, we've all seen what a lethal deep ball JP throws to Evans.

I don't think Ralph or Marv is purely in it for the money. You can't take it with you! Ralph and Marv both really do care about the Bills, and if you think that is sugar coating it, I think you misread their actual personalities. Caring about the Bills isn't as important as doing a really good job, but there are people like Marv or Tommy Lasorda who really do care deeply about the team they work(ed) for. It isn't necessarily the most important thing, but after dispising TD for a while I find Marv very refreshing. TD did make some very good moves leaving marv some good pieces, but his tenure as a whole was a failure no matter how you look at it.

Yeah, I don't think there is any advantage to having McGee in there until Sept 10 (unless he wants a couple in the last preseason practice). It is something that can be simulated pretty well in practice, and the rest of the unit can do the exact same schemes with Shaud, even if he runs two gears slower and isn't going to bust it. My thoughts on the game were that JP looked better than I was expecting after all I'd read and heard. He made some mistakes, and we have to take a little more of the learning process this year since Meathead didn't let him play all last year. But he also made great plays short, medium, and long. I was impressed with the O-Line in general, but looking at some plays slow in Tivo, Villarial's guy tended to close the hole and make the tackle. Reyes and Fowler looked really mobile and made some good blocks. The D allowed Chad Johnson (an amazing player) to make some plays, but really played well as a unit, and I think are getting the scheme as a whole and getting the job done. No big plays, and nobody stood out to me, but all around it was solid, and this is still without Spikes. It would be fun to have more flash from Whitner and McCargo, but that will come, and we have to have patience. Bunkley, Ngata, and others haven't impressed me too much in the other games I've seen so far. I also agree that Reed has to drop on the depth chart. He is always going to be an underachiever because he is not good at catching the ball, and that is a tough thing to pick up this late in a career. Hopefully Price and Aiken can step up, because Josh is a clear disappointment.

Great post. Let's keep this thread humor only, since it is a bad rumor with no link or evidence provided, so it is about as relevant as my "Nall might be traded for Brady" rumor that I'm starting right now.