JDG

Amen! Moulds has shown that he can play as long as the QB gets him the ball. The Bills aren't exactly cap-strapped this season.... they need to find a way to keep Moulds around. JDG

As we start 2006, Tom Donahoe is known to be a goner..... so living that issue aside, here is the case for why the new GM should fire Mularkey. 1) Good NFL Coaches Get Better, Not Worse Even account for the vast differences in schedule, everything about this team, except the Special Teams, has gotten worse from last season. Moreover, we went from 9-7 to 5-11. That is a huge regression. Are offense is worse, even with Holcomb in there, and our defense is much, much, worse. Blech. The schedule is part of the story here, but I don't think it can explain the entire disparity. You can also include in this category the Bills' astonishing record this year of scoring on the opening drive, and then getting completely outscored in the 2nd Half of football games. 2) Good NFL Coaches Take Care of Business Against the JV Squad Its interesting to note that every single NFL team in a must-win scenario took care of business today. Last year, however, Buffalo was playing *at home*, with the playoffs on the line, and lost to Tommy Maddox and the Pittsburgh third-stringers. It ranks as one of the most embarassing losses in the 40+ years of Buffalo Bills history, and is simply not acceptable in the National Football League. How can we expect Mularkey to lead us to playoff wins, let alone a Super Bowl win, if he couldn't even take care of business *at home* against the Steelers' JV squad in such a critical game? 3) Good Buffalo Coaches, Beat Miami - And Don't Embarass Us Its kind of tacky, but also kind of true. In Buffalo, you get partially judged by your ability to beat the hated Dolphins. Blowing a 21-point lead to a Miami team led by Sage Rosenfels and Wes Welker, with Chris Chambers to catch a whopping 15 passes (maybe we aught to cover him?) also ranks as one of the most embarassing losses in Buffalo Bills History. That's quite a record of embarassment in just two years as a Buffalo Head Coach. 4) Good NFL Coaches Manage Personalities One of the primary duties of an NFL Head Coach is to provide leadership to the team, and build the team around his image. Yet, Mularkey just strikes me as being very bland - I don't see the fire of leadership burning there. Moreover, Mularkey has allowed personality conflicts with two of our better players, Eric Moulds and Sam Adams, to positively explode into full-blown distractions with this team - to the point of both players missing football games for us. Then there's also the various Willis McGahee incidents throughout the year, that also stuck me as being mismanaged. In short, Mularkey doesn't seem to be inspiring confidence in this department. 5) An "Offensive-Minded" Head Coach Should Demonstrate Basic Competence Many of the Bills' offensive numbers for this season ranked among the worst in team history in the modern 16-game schedule era. Think about that for a moment, that means this offense - featuring McGahee, Moulds, Evans, and Parrish - is ranking worse than the Todd Collins year, worse than the RJ 3-13 year, and worse than the 2-14 years of the mid-80's. The Bills smashed their previous modern-record for total offensive futility by 207 yards. Moreover, the Bills finished just 10 yards above the worst team rushing total of this era, despite being a "power rushing team." This sort of thing has to come back on the coaches, for whom offense is supposedly a specialty, and who aren't completely deprived of talented offensive weapons. 6) An "Offensive-Minded" Head Coach Should Be Better in the "Red Zone" Suffice to say, the Bills have been putrid in the red zone this year, even if I don't have the full stats to prove it. Against the Jets, the Bills scored 1 TD in 4 tries in a game we lost by 4 points. Against the Bengals the week before, the Bills had 2 TD in 5 tries. In the Miami debacle we were 1 for 3. In the game at New England, which we lost by 5 points, we were 0 for 3. This is a record of sheer futility - and all of these examples came with Kelly Holcomb at QB, whom Mularkey clearly believes gives us his best shot. 7) Good NFL Coaches Beat the Teams They Are Supposed to Beat We all know that Mularkey started Kelly Holcomb this week, instead of giving JP Losman more game experience, in order to secure a win and so build his resume for saving his job. Mularkey didn't get the win, and so he should not save his job. Indeed, let's just think about the team we were playing this week. The Jets were playing their 3rd-string QB, their backup Center, and their 3rd-string RB. The Jets were also missing their starting TE, their slot WR, and their two best defensive linemen (Bryan Robertson, and Shaun Ellis.) In other words, for the second year in a row, Mularkey has ended the season by losing to an opponents' JV squad. Admittedly this one was on the road - but you need to beat bad teams on the road to get to the playoffs. (Playoffs?) Of course, of the 7 teams drafting ahead of us, Mularkey managed to lose to a whopping 4 of them in the same year! Talk about just not getting it done. I think the indictment of Mularkey after two seasons is a mile long. Yes, it will be a burden to this small-market franchise to pay Mularkey for three years to not coach us, but paying Mularkey not to coach us gives this team its best chance to win. I hope that our new GM takes notice. JDG

Allow me to present this in the form of questions: 1) Would the Bills have gained 375 yards of offense vs. Cincy and 343 yards vs. the Jets with JP Losman at QB? Would we have scored 37 and 26 points the last two weeks with JP Losman at QB? 2) If Eric Moulds had not caught 10 for 99 and 8 for 96 the last two weeks, would you possibly be thinking that just maybe Eric Moulds really might not be able to play any more? 3) If teams had continued to have zero fear of our QB (JP Losman) being able to pass the ball, at Willis McGahee didn't have 100 yards against the Jets, would you be a bit more concerned about McGahee not having had 100 yards since Halloween? JDG

Maybe Losman was really, really, bad?????

And we thought that we had it bad......

Because heaven knows that the fans of the NFL teams picking #15-30 are all clammoring for their teams to trade their 1st and 3rd for the #9 overall pick..... JDG

No worries, mate. It was a good attempt. I've actually done this the last 2-3 weeks, and was really surprised to see how much they completely changed from week to week. Next year, I'll know better that SOS numbers before the last week of the season are almost absolutely meaningless. JDG

And if Houston beats San Francisco, then New Orleans wins the Reggie Bush bowl..... San Francisco is locked into the #3 pick..... JDG

I've crunched a few more numbers, and narrowed our possibilities. Here's where we stand right now: After the early games on Sunday Buffalo is currently tied with Arizona for the #9 pick in the draft. I am going to pencil Tennessee in as a loser until that score changes significantly. If Houston and Dallas win, the Bills stay tied with Arizona for #9. If San Francisco and Dallas win the Bills claim the #9 spot outright. If St. Louis wins, the Bills move up to #8. Again, assuming a Tennessee loss, we can narrow our draft position to #8 - #10, #10 occurring if we tie Arizona and lose the coin-flip. JDG - Who really aught to have better things to do on a Sunday.....

Here's where we stand right now: After the early games on Sunday Buffalo is currently tied with Arizona for the #9 pick in the draft. I am going to pencil Tennessee in as a loser until that score changes significantly. If Houston and Dallas win, the Bills stay tied with Arizona for #9. If San Francisco and Dallas win the Bills claim the #9 spot outright. If St. Louis wins, the Bills move up to #8. Again, assuming a Tennessee loss, we can narrow our draft position to #8 - #10, #10 occurring if we tie Arizona and lose the coin-flip. JDG

A San Francisco win substantially increases Arizona's strength of schedule, because Arizona has played San Francisco *twice*. JDG

This is incorrect. You neglected to account for all the other wins and losses this weekend - which have substantially altered the SOS standings. The Rams have currently clinched a weaker SOS than the Bills, thus the Bills can only catch them if the Rams win. JDG

Here's where we stand right now: After the early games on Sunday Buffalo has the #10 pick in the Draft. I am going to pencil Tennessee in as a loser until that score changes significantly. If San Francisco and Dallas win the Bills move into a tie with Arizona for the #9 spot. If San Francisco and St. Louis win, the Bills move up to #8. Again, assuming a Tennessee loss, we can narrow our draft position to #8 - #10. JDG - Crunching the SOS numbers as we go......

The Bills will pick between #7 and #10, depending on what happens in the late games. JDG

Or just maybe both teams realize that the difference between #3 and #4 is inconsequential when weighed against the opportunity to rest your key starters????

Good point..... but there is no way that Mularkey can be safe if Donahoe is not safe. The new GM HAS to have at least *some* say in whether or not to retain Mularkey. If Donahoe goes, at the very least, Mularkey is not *safe*. JDG

The Buffalo news' reporting this morning makes it clear that they still think Donahoe is a goner - just as they have been saying for weeks. John Clayton and ProFootballMoron - errr... Talk ;-) think that Donahoe's staying. My money is on the Buff News..... but this will be a great "scorecard" moment over the next week or two here..... JDG

South Carolina has a vaunted offensive line????!!!???? JDG (I know, I know.... I'm just pointing out the stupid use of undeclared abbreviations)

You guys act like Donahoe has done this more than once. JDG

Except that the NFL has made an executive decision to put its premiere package of games on Sunday Nights instead of Monday nights, so it would require both the NFL changing its packaging back to the old ways and ABC rebidding and winning. So, the funny thing is that the Bills are almost guaranteed to be on "Monday Night Football" next year, and have almost no shot of being on Sunday Night. JDG

The Bills could lose and Tennessee and Oakland could both win, and with a number of other things falling right, the Bills could pick #6. JDG

The Bills will pick between #6 and #14. JDG

Not quite. Eli Manning started the same number of games as a rookie as JP did this year. Leftwich's San Diego game was his second start. Big Ben's Dallas game was his 4th start. Point being, NFL Rookie QB's *are* capable of showing us good games in the time allotted to Losman so far. Now, he could well be a late-bloomer ala Rich Gannon, but that doessn't preclude being concerned about the present. And yes, while Grossman's game was hardly spectacular - its still better than any game that Losman has ever had - which is surely an adequate description of how very bad Losman has been. JDG

For the record, I think we should play Losman on Sunday. I am simply pointing out that in NFL terms the time has come to be concerned about the long-term prospects of JP Losman. He has been unusually bad, and has given us very scant glimmers of hope for the future. And as such, the Buffalo Bills coaches and players should not be excoriated for having a bit of concern about this thing themselves..... JDG

Eli Manning vs. Pittsburgh 16 of 23 (70%) for 182 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 2 rushes for 18 yards Tom Brady - Super Bowl (O.k., this was Brady's 2nd year, but Losman threw more passes as a rookie than Brady did.) Ben Roethlisberger - @Dallas (to pick just one example) 21 of 25 (84%!!!) for 193 yards, 2 TD Byron Leftwich - vs. San Diego 19 of 28 (68%) for 336 yards!!!, 2 TD Carson Palmer - @Baltimore (again, 2nd year, but Losman threw more passes as a rookie than Palmer did) 29 of 36 (80.6%!!) for 382 yards!!!, 3 TD and 1 INT Rex Grossman - vs. Washington 19 of 32 (59.4%) for 249 yds 2TD and 1 INT (note: this is not spectacular by any means, but is more yards than Losman has ever thrown for, and a higher completion percentage than ever game against the Texans.) Next question? JDG