JDG

Can someone please riddle me this.... So, the Bills are coming off one of their biggest wins in about two years, they are not yet mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, and they are facing a huge December home game against our arch-rivals in an elimination game at best, and for third place in the division at worst...... AND OUR COACH IS MAKING ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT NEXT SEASON???!!!???!!! Good grief JDG P.S. Not to say that there is any evidence for a serious argument about this decision, I just wonder about the timing of making it a subject for discussion at the moment.....

Congratulations to JP Losman on this announcement. Although I disagree entirely with the announcement, my disagreements have nothing to do with JP Losman's performance as of late. Going into a tough road environment against a team contending for the playoffs in December and pulling off a sizeable win filled in a significant gap on JP Losman's resume. A superb result for Losman on Sunday, all the more remarkable given how far he has come from last season, and indeed, from even the first half of this season. I have to say that I did not think that JP Losman had that kind of performance in him as of just a few weeks ago, and on that account, I was wrong. So, congratulations are certainly in order. JDG

However hard you think it is to find an ILB in free agency, finding a comparably good CB is harder - in my mind, multiple times so..... You sign the CB first. JDG

Don't forget a guy by the name of Cribbs in Cleveland - he's pretty good too. Also, Houston's Jerome Mathis has been hurt most of this season, but he actually pipped McGee for the Pro Bowl nod last year.... its just a reminder of how very hard making the Pro Bowl really is. JDG

My point is very simply this.... I don't get why more talent or less talent; win or lose; whatever - excuses Dick Jauron from fulfilling certain minimum competencies for his job, no matter what other things he does well. Its like losing a game on a kick return, but saying that you can't criticizing his special teams coaching because it was his defensive coaching that kept us in the game against a superior team. As a head coach, you have to do a lot of things well to succeed in this League. Dick Jauron did some things well, on other things he failed. All I'm doing is pointing out those failings. JDG

O.k., so I guess that in the future I will only analyze Dick Jauron's decision-making after games against opponents with inferior talent. How many evaluated games a year is that then? JDG

I was giving Dick Jauron one ding for three questionable decisions, one was not going for it (on which reasonable people can disagree - but on that infentisemally short distance, down by 10, with the wind such a huge factor, I go for it to keep a drive alive with the wind). The other two were not challenging the spot on the 4th and inches, and also not challenging the Hargrove fumble recovery. Somewhere in those three things is a full ding in my book. There isn't a provision for a "long enough pause" in the rules.... Dick Jauron and his staff got the rule wrong, plain and simple. They should have never blown our final timeout of the second half on a challenge that we had little to no chance of winning. If Ed Hochuli can know the rule, Dick Jauron's staff can know the rule. We are paying this staff millions of dollars - for that amount of money, I expect them to know the rules *better* than the referees. And you are dead wrong about "worth the risk" - if there's no chance of it being overturned, because it wasn't a catch, then it isn't worth the risk. "Being worth the risk" isn't just based on the possible reward, its also based on the probable cost. Otherwise, teams would throw the ball deep on every single play, because the play *might* result in a TD, and so would be "worth the risk". Again, it is Dick Jauron and his staff's fault for not properly preparing the team for the situation - especially given that they just had a timeout to do so. I really hope and wish you are right. JDG

And it is up to Dick Jauron and his staff to know that no matter how badly the "push" call was blown by the officials, that that is just imply not reviewable. I don't know what you are talking about here. The Bills' first dive of more than 30 yards on the day started with 3:19 left in the game, the Bills down by 10 and out of time outs. San Diego proceeded to give us all the dump-off passes we wanted, and we obliged by consuming all but 30 seconds of that time on our touchdown drive - even after being bailed out by an inexcusable fumble by a San Diego player who had just ended the game with his interception. And so are the Texans presumably - well, I guess that we did inexplicably get a stop against them, even though they were average 6 yards a carry, and had a 3rd and 2 situation with less than two minutes lest. But you are changing the subject,- I am talking about the little things that are necessary to win - the little things that Dick Jauron simply did not do. Fine, the Chargers are a more talented team, and even if Dick Jauron does all the little things the Bills would in all likelihood still lose the game to a more talented team. But you know what, someday the Bills are going to have more talent, and when that day games, having a Coach that does the little things correctly may well end up being the difference between making the playoffs and going home, or winning a playoff game and going home. The little things are important, and more often than that - they are easy enough to do, and should always be accomplished. All too often, in the National Football League, just one little thing can be the difference between winning and losing a close game. You'll have to forgive me for not burying my head in the sand and giving Dick Jauron a free pass simply because he pulled a huge choke job on the little things against a more talented team. JDG

Well, and I'm glad that you're not the coach. Under NFL Rules, that was *not* a catch. NFL Coaches are expected to have staffs that know the Rules. I don't think that they took a timeout to "think about it" - that would be beyond dumb - but after taking the timeout, they absolutely needed to get the challenge decision absolustely right. They did not. And as for "getting back into the game", we never mounted a true offensive drive until the Chargers went into a prevent, and were, as usual, completely unable to get a defensive stop when we needed it. JDG

We're not giving up all our runs straight up the gut. JDG

There have been some positives this season, like reasonably hanging around the Colts and Chargers, and making the final scores of those games look closer than they really were, but on the other side of the equation is needing the last play of the game to beat Houston, losing to Detroit, and coming up with a ridiculous pass-happy gameplan against Chicago. Ultimately, though, in this week's game Dick Jauron made lots of little mistakes that made an already-tough game even harder for the Bills to win. 1) On 4th and inches, Dick Jauron decides to not go for it, down by 10. (I also wonder if the play might not have been challengeable - I thought that we got a bad spot.) O.k., reasonable people can disagree on this one - especially since he's been burned on some bad 4th downs earlier this season. Dick Jauron also, for whatever reason, chose not to challenge a possible fumble early in the game as well. 2) After the big sideline catch, Dick Jauron took a timeout, and then decided during the timeout to conduct a challenge. That's pretty bad. What is absolutely unacceptable is that Dick Jauron did not have anyone on his staff in the coaches box who KNEW THE NFL RULES!!!! This play had an absolutely crystal-clear replay angle with it, and Dick Jauron's staff had a full timeout to look at the replay - at minimum, all they had to do was watch the CBS feed of the game. It is essential for his staff to be able to make an accurate "red flag" recommendation to him when they have a full timeout to review the play. It is sad to me that the Bills beat writers are slow to criticize Dick Jauron for this, since most sportswriters don't know the rules - but Ralph Wilson is spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of our ticket revenues on Dick Jauron's staff. Is it really so much to ask that Dick Jauron hire a staff who KNOWS THE NFL RULES??!!!!????!!!!??? Ed Hochuli knew the rules, surely the Buffalo Bills can hire someone who knows the rules. 3) Speaking of not knowing the rules, at the end of the first half, the Bills were stopped just shy of a 1st down deep in their own end, and San Diego quickly called a timeout. The referees, however, decided to conduct a measurement, and so San Diego was not charged a timeout. What the Bills inexplicably forgot, however, is that after this measurement, the clock starts again!!! Instead, the Bills went ahead and snapped the ball for the punt without thinking - giving the Chargers just enough time to score a touchdown before the half in a game that they ultimately won by three points. Yes, this is just a little thing, but little things win football games - and right now, I am not convinced that Dick Jauron is doing them.... JDG

...but given that this team could not stop the run if its life depended on it, just how good can Fletcher, Crowell, and Spikes really be? I mean, the run defense on this team is just plain killing us.... it ultimately did us in on Sunday and against Indy, as the Chargers and Colts both just plain run the ball right down our open throats in crunch time, and rushing defense is a big reason why it took us all the way to the last play of the game to beat the Jags and Texans. About the only positive, I can say is that at least with our run defense being so bad, we aren't giving up tons of points - but the rushing defense problem is definitely much deeper than the defensive tackles or even the safeties.... JDG

Actually, if anything, Moorman's play was a notch below the best-of-all-time type standards he was setting for himself a couple weeks ago. The NY Giants? JDG

No, its not confusing at all.......

I haven't even looked at the box score yet to see what the stat sheet shows, but in my opinion, this may be JP's best game as a pro. With the exception of some ill-advised bombs into the wind, it seemed to me that JP Losman was all the things that I hadn't seen from him in his first 16 or so games as a starter - accurate on mid-randge throws, poised under center, sustaining offensive drives, and keeping cool and making plays in a high-pressure end-of-game situation. Roscoe Parrish is obviously the hands-down MVP of this game, Lee Evans was a monster, and McGahee had two great TD runs for us, but I would be remiss in overlooking JP Losman's accomplishments today. Jacksonville has a very good run defense, and some injuries in the secondary, so despite the wind, it was important for us to move the ball through the air today - and it was great that JP Losman was able to come through for the team in that situation. He's got another big test next week, against a good and relatively healthy defense. I hope that he can find a way to continue to get better. JDG

That's why you draft playmakers. Roscoe Parrish is a difference-maker, and he showed it today. JDG

This is a classic example of "God is Love, Love is Blind, Ray Charles is Blind, therefore Ray Charles is GOD" logic. I don't know why in the two years that we have been evaluating JP Losman that some NFL fans have been unable to grasp the possibility that there is more than one level of "bad." This is the same thing I have been going through over and over again with people who have tried to compare JP Losman's early performances to the early performances of other QB's - somehow people only see one level of "bad." Look, even if one wanted to remain solely focused on the single stat that you presented - Rob Johnson still passed for TWENTY-EIGHT PERCENT more yards against the Titans than JP Losman did against the Packers. And yet, you come out and describe them as "crappy the whole day, terrible" - unable to see a dime's worth of difference even between your own single-minded statistic. Additionally, I think it is utterly fallacious to fail to distinguish between the circumstances. There is a vastly different standard for a performance at home, against one of the worst pass defenses in the League, in a near-meaningless game against a bad team coming off two straight wins, and yourself coming off a string of sub-par performances and really needing to show something on one hand; vs. the standard for performance against one of the League's best defenses; in one of the toughest, loudest, road environments in the League; in the freakin' PLAYOFFS!!!!!! Lastly, in having confidence in a player, I think it is important to get one's nose out of the box score, and actually look at how the player played the game. JP Losman did zilch against the Packers, got into field position solely because of his special teams, and was bailed out by a Packers defense that committed football malpractice in blowing defensive coverage on the deep ball in a 2nd and 20 situation. Rob Johnson led (what should have been, save for a bad call by the refs) a game-winning drive in the playoffs against a very good defense in one of the toughest, loudest, road environments in the League. Playing without a shoe may not have really mattered all that much, but it certainly is the sort of thing that help "create a legend", and certainly is the sort of thing that helps boost ones' confidence, even beyond ones' stat line. Even beyond that, though, plain and simple, game-winning two-minute drives build confidence...... So, at the end of the day, you looked at the stat sheet, said that the two stat lines were about the same (which they weren't even that); then completely failed to evaluate the actual quality of play underlying those stat lines; and then posted a remarkably arrogant comment about all of it. Oh yeah, but I'm the crazy one.... JDG

Did you mean 131 yards? In any event, this is yet another example of why you can't boil down a QB to a single stat and say "QB X is better than QB Y." I think there is a huge difference in confidence between hitting a wide open guy at home against a bad team after your opponent commits football malpractice on 2nd and 20 on one hand, and leading your team down the field in a two-minute drill, in the playoffs, against a very good defense, in a very hostile road environment, while having the athletic tape hanging off your foot after you lost your shoe, for what would have been the game-winning field goal, if not for a bad call by the refs. You can feel free to call me crazy for believing that. JDG

You make it sound like you have solved football.....

Given that the Conventional Wisdom of the Texans game is "see I told you so - we just needed to unleash JP", I greatly appreciate this post. I agree with most of it. In regards to the gameplanning, though, one of the great mysteries of this season for me is why the Bills' braintrust did not come out with the "Miami/Green Bay/Indy" gameplan against Chicago, but instead came out throwing. That was just inexplicable to me. I think we've seen plenty of evidence this season that Chicago is exactly the type of team that thrives off other teams' mistakes, but can be prone to making mistake of their own. Oh well, go figure. I also think that it is worth noting, that one of the knocks on Losman to this point is that all he is over-reliant upon hitting the deep bomb play as a source of offense, and that he doesn't sustain drives with regular offense. There were some hints in the Texans game that he might finally be answering those criticisms, particularly with his performance on the two-minute drill, but for the time period between those two deep bombs and the two-minute drill, those questions weren't completely answered, either. JDG

Chad Stanley is one of a handfull of AFC punters who can legitimately compete with Moorman for that Hawai'i trip. After two weeks where Moorman was arguably the best punter in the NFL, for three quarters Moorman wasn't even the best punter on the field on Sunday. Chad Stanley completely out-punted him to that point. The last series, though, Moorman was a difference-maker. Moorman punted 42 yards to the Houston 11. The Texans make it out to the 30, and then Chad Stanely had a mediocre punt of only 34 yards. The Bills' drive falters, Jauron makes the gutsy decision to go with our MVP, and Moorman drops a 45 yarder to the Houston 11. After the Texans inexplicably pass on 3rd and 2 in a "run-the-clock" situation, Chad Stanley has another mediocre punt of only 36 yards this time, and the rest is history. JDG

So, in your opinion, the Nate Clements INT in that game was purely the result of a bad throw? That is, if the throw had been good, that play was unstoppable, right? JDG

Last year, I thought that McGee was replacing Clements as our best CB. This year, obviously, that sounds silly - Clements has been good, at times very good, and McGee has bordered on being benched. After yesterday, Clements convinced me that we aught to pay him this offseason. If you are wondering how it is that we only gave up 14 offensive points to a team who's QB tied an NFL record for completions and whose RB's averaged 7 yards per carry, the answer is in large part Nate Clements - he had an INT, a fumble recovery, and the game-saving stop on 3rd and 2. He saved the Green Bay game too. And although Andre Johnson had his plays (a player of his caliber usually does), Clements is also the primary reason why Johnson didn't go all Chris Chambers (remember last year) on us. I think that we have to pay him.... JDG

Actually King wrote "differential" in his column. JSP misquoted him.... JDG

I don't particularly "hate" Losman, but I wonder why I should care about a meaningless stat like that..... Why should I give a QB credit when the coach calls a swing pass to the FB from the 3 yard line, but not for throwing a 40 yard pass to the three yard line that is punched in by the RB? Why do I care only about INT's, but not about fumbles? I'm sorry, but this idea that you can take a single a statistic, define a QB by it, and say that "QB X is better than QB Y" is absurd. JDG