Pyrite Gal

I aggree that this is not a make or break game for JP. its important as all games are important so that is not saying much. The timing of the game makes this an important opportunity to measure his progress and as tbe Bills are looking to reverse a 3 game slide its importantce is magnified. However, even if Jim bo were QB 2 of these three factors heightening the import of the game would be true so as far as JP goes this is just another steo he needs tio take if he wants to stick around. However, I see little greater or lesser import based on where he is. He will neither end all questions wih a good game or sign his death warrant as a Bill with a bad game.

So what is it that you propose doing?

This is a starting point as the real deal is whether the players together form a TEAM which is greater than the mere sum of the parts assessed here, but its a start in thinking it through. WR Evans- Middlin performance so far. Has led the team in catches in most games this year, but still is on a pace to finish below 1000 yds and be really disappointing in terms of TDs. However, all of this points to me as a player who has shown the potential to be the #1 WR we want but he really has not been used well in this scheme which is one of the worst in the league in producing long pass plays. The number of passes caught indicate that he an JP do have some chemistry, but the lack of long gains and TD seems to speak to his number not being called on downfield plays very much. Parrish- Impressive so far as he leads the team in per catch avd. TDs and is a reliable return guy on punts. Heeasily has put up #s that would be very good for a #3 WR if only we had production from WRs at the #1 and #2 level. Aiken- After a good pre-season has not impressed so far in position play and is simply a ST guy Price- Second on the team in catches but low yards per catch again raises questions about his usage and implementation of our scheme Reed- Good to see he has gotten over the droppsies which ruined his second year but simply does not pose much of a threat to go deep and his central usage on our anemic O raises questions about our approach. Davis- His role with this team is on ST and he has been up and down in production in this role for us. RB- McGahee- Well on his way to another 1000+ ud season and he is showing some ability to catch passes. His yards per carry remain lower than one would hope from a #1 RB, but he has proved to be a workhorse for us carrying the ball a lot. Has both whiffed and made some outstanding blocks in blitz pick-up (the game where he made two blitz pick-up blocks on the same play was quite impressive), but as long as he makes any mistakes there clearly are those more than willing to declare him mediocre despite his producing one of the best yardage totals among RBs at thos point. Thomas- Has been OK spelling McGahee but little more than that outside of one game. Williams- Who? Shelton- I think they should have cut him after pre-season and he has shown nothing to indicate this was a bad thought. QB Losman- Steps forward and steps back in each game. Bes thing about his game is that he has made plays with his legs sometimes, but also has had the calmness to throw it away and live to fight another day ublike in the past. However, his penchant for fumbling is beginning to be a real issue abd one wonders whether it may simply make more sense for Jauron to just let him go and try to make plays and allow him to sink or swim as this current death of a thousand cuts just does not cut it.. Bills seem correctly committed to sticking with him and there will not likely be any serious sign he better play or he will be benched unless we promote Nall to 2nd team and even then they like;y will do this as a motivational move for JP before they seriously decide to look elsewhere. OL- Peters- Mpw that he has been moved to LT we will see whether he is in fact the real deal. Gandy disappointed at LT this year after a surprisingly adequate 05 campaign at LT and I like him as a back-up. Gandy- He was originlly picked to be a guard and there is the potential that he and Peters (if Peters is as good of an athlete as projected that he and Gandy may be a good team one day, but it will probably take some learning time and chemistry development time before this happens if it does. Its to bad Reyes got hurt but his injury may be timely and I feel fine about him as a back-up. The Bills were comfortable enough with Merz to have him start last week and though he was not particularly impressive he is fine as a 3rd stringer who provides some depth. Fowler- So so so far. He is not a reject at C, but not a force either. Having him listed on the last injury report as questionable was not a good sign and is a worry as he never has started or even played all 16 games in his career and his good performance for MM last year was cut short due to injury. Preston- He did not step into Cillarial's slot and command the position as a real starter would have and if Fowler ever goes down and we have to rely on him at C this becomes an issue. Merz is listed at third string and the fact he started a game for us at LH makes him reasonable depth though C is really a skill position with line calss etc and there is no evidence he can handle them. RG- Villariial is likely in borrowed time and his back-up Preston has somethings to prove as he did not play well enough to keep Villarial out when he got hurt. With the move of Gandy to LG Reyes may actually be the best RG plan B. RT- Pennington is now the key to our OL being stable as he has been promoted over the more highly drafted Buler to be our RT. We'll see. TEs- Royal had his best game as a Bill on Sunday and Marv is making noises about using the TEs more so perhaps there are some possibilities here. The Nills opened in a 2 TE set and sat the poorly playing Shelton for Everett who at least has been adequate in getting some PT this year though he has been unspectacular. it was great to see Neufeld get a TD so perhaps this unit can turn their merely adequate play into being a weapon with better use. Overall, I think we need a scheme shift here. The offense needs to stretch the field more sending Price and Evans deep. i have no problem benching Everett for Parrish andreally challenging the opposing DBs. Opponents do not respect our passing game and they line up a lot of folks in the box and it is no wonder WM has been solid but unspectacular.

Even with Leinart being a stud elsewhere (which it is still yet to be seen if he is a true stud (we'll see in 3 years for real in terms of assessment( my sense is that this would have been a horrible waste of resources to take him. In addition to the hole at SS left on our roster, we'd have two QBs in need of develiopment on our roster and such a pick would likely condemn us to at least 2 year if not 3 of losing. Picking Leinart simply makes little sense on the face of it.

I'll try, but actually the tough thing about a struggling Bills team is that it gets a little tougher for me to justify spending way too much time on TSW and the Bills to my my lovely wife. Recovering from the storm which hit Buffalo, and the day to day Bill balancing and paying are also commanding a bit more time these days and bye week was actuallly long ago promised to her for doing stuff as I took in the 2nd of 3 promised plays with her last night (Wicked in Toronto was an extraordinary work on Wednesday, 2 Days of Rain at Studio Arena last night was fairly unpenetrable to all and we are off the the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake next for something or other this bye week. Sje is sleeping in this morning so at least I get a little time to Billsify but we will see.

I'm not sure I agree as primarily due to the Fins rather than doormats, I think that the Bills are actually that plastic thing at the bottom of the door which keeps the cold air out and the warm air in which rides above the door mat. I disagree also with your pessimistic view since it is actually the restricted size of the cap which levels the platying field and as it gets larger the monetary distance will spread and if we become more like baseball, though teams which spend a lot do have an advantage, this crutch also makes GMs lazy and more focused on their cash advantage than making good judgments. In baseball you have examples like the Yankees whose cash advantage always makes them competitive, but has not resulted in a WS win in a while and teams like Oakland have produced similar results consistently with lowball budgets. Closer to home in football, it is pretty clear that the seemingly infinite money of the Skims has not translated into always good (if not ever good) play so I do not think that your increasing cap argument is justified by the actual events. I also have been disappointed by Jauron who I do not think has put his players into a scheme which allows them to perform better. I think a better scheme for the players will not make this team a playoff team and good schemes do not turn bad players into good ones. Yet, i think we might have another vicotory or two if this team were not so hidebound committed to things like the Cover 2 which are safeties are not experienced enough to play well. The scheme problems mostly have me disappointed in Jauron who i think would be a better HC if he were more flexible in his approach. However, i would not condemn him to a certainty of future failure as the lessons of losing may help him change. JP also has not impressed yet, but contractually we are in no position to give up on him this year and likely next so why worry about this until off-season. To pull the plug now would be simply foolish. The warm weather theory seems fairly unsupported to me and amounts to little more than fact free opinion without some detailed argument.

My sense is that the team should simply focus on the next game and thus you are right they should focus on the Packers. However, as fans we should also just focus but that means focus on the fact this is bye week. Fans get to do whatever we want anyway, but clearly unlike any other week during the season fans IMHO should take the opportunity of the bye week to focus on intelligent assessment after 7 weeks or whatever silliness gives them fan pleasure.

if the Bills moved Nall up to #2 on the depth chart and even this move would likely be done as a method of trying to pressure JP into performing better rather than a sign that the Bills are giving up on JP, My guess is that the Bills judge the kniown commodity of Holcomb to be a better bet that Nall coming off the bench, but as the season prospects dim game after game then thoughts intelligemtly need to turn toward building for the future. Anyway you cut it Holcomb is not the QB of the future for the Bills due to his being on the backsode of his career. While Nall has shown little to indicate he is a good prospect for the future, hr id sround his prime as an athlete and has shown some good work in extrmely limited duty as a back-up to Favre and in his injury shortened pre-season with the Bills (as well as some horrid plays as he attempted and failed to make up for his lost time). Ae any rate, if the Bills have any desire not to let JP play, make errors and learn all this season, my guess is that they move Nall up to #2 to give him some more practice time and to put a little pressure on JP as a stimulator. I think until we see this happen simply forget about the idea of us sitting JP unless he gets hurt or has some serious mid-game meltdown far worse than the fumbles this weekend.

I assume that your two comments should not be linked together to conclude that if you are not a top caliber back then you are mediocre. Or am I wrong to assume that you do not link two parts of the same short post to draw a conclusion you view as rational.

I thought the same thing right after the play and though the idiocy was late in starting the absurdity has really spring forth adter your post. If some of these folks had been Browns fans Jim Brown would have never retired because they would have cut him and gotten a contract killer to do him in first. (btw the above comment was made not to compare WM to Brown since there obviously is no comparison but the give speech o how psychotic folks sound saying he avoids getting hit).

Add a Brad Johnson to your analogy. He actually gets called for a date his first time and he ends up being a total schmuck and is dumped. Still he looks like a stud so he gets a call for a secomd date and lo and behold he is still a schmuck amd gets dumped. Yet, there are tons of chicks in this town and on his third date he takes the babe to places she has never been before. In the ned, JP is JP amd while comparisons have some utility just after the draft, reality sets in and the comparisons are pretty much meaningless. What is meaningful is what works for him. Contractually and practically with the miscues and good things he has shown he is a work in progress and gets more work and more time before we write him off.

Again, a good scheme will not make bad players good, but when you have inadequate players it is even more important to use a scheme which lets them make the plays they can make. Our use of the zone blitz with increasing frequency does not surprise me as I understand some posts which long for Wade as I think even the Jerry Gray scheme would work better for this team.

II would rather win than force it if we are gonna get burned and beat too often. I think this is what is happening now. On plays like the long pass to Chad whathisname, it was the CBs covering the zone inside so they can press or cover tightly and our young safties not recognizing the deep patterns and we get beat for six. I have no interest in seeing the Bills play press coverage if they are going to play bad press coverage. Would you really prefer bad press coverage to them playing better in some other scheme?

Yeah it starts with talent but it does not end there. A good scheme will not make bad players good, but certain schemes will emphasize the particular weaknesses of bad players while other schemes will emphasize putting your bad players in the best position they can be in to make plays even if they are not good players. One can whine all one wants about the players being bad, but given the only players to be found now are waiver wire cuts or players that teams are willing or even haooy to part with, I see little reason in emphasizing getting different or better players now. This type of consideration makes far more sense during the FA period and the off-season generally, but a focuis on this point becomes mere bleating and whining pretty quickly. My post specifically said that the current players are generally not very good (for a range of reasons but fortunately a major problem is youth and inexperience in a team with far more rookies starting than most). What the thread maintained was that the current scheme which Jauron can alter now during the bye week like no other time in regular season does not strike me as putting these bad players in the best position for them to make the plays they can make. What is even more foreboding, the FA class looks pretty tight and I really will need to see how we are in fact going to acquire the players who best make this scheme work given the problems we have displayed. I think there is room to talk with some logic about needing better players in this context, but for someone to state the obvious that our cuirrent players have not performed well without at least some hint at specific positions or specific players we should target, posts lambasting the play quality come off as mere whining and bleating.

I know what it is as well and I'm just not foolish enough to think that I know exactly what our intent is and how we WANT to do things merely by what I am seeing on TV (or even worse at the game as what is going on is happening so fast and in so many places and the viewpoint of the seats generally really sucks for seeing plays develop. Nothing beats being at the game for having the feel of how it is going, but the scheme viewpoints to do not compare at all to other vantage points which is why the coordinators usually hang out up above and send down pictures to the players and nothing beats tape for really taking apart and analyzing what happened. At any rate, you see there is this other little thing called the other team and our D scheme changes based on down and distance and what they do. These are the major dictators of what we are doing and not simply what type of style we want to play. Even you as a big believer in press coverage if the down and distance and the scheme selected by the oppositions (not to mention the particular match-ups- you can press Roy Williams all you want and he will eat virtually every CB in the league alive if you do) dictate you backing off then you better back off or you will get burned. What's the major reason why the Bills use less press coverage than any of us like? My sense is that the answer is our ineffectiveness against the run. When the O goes into second down with an option to run or pass, then press coverage would be nice because a moderate gain on a throw will pick up thje first down, but if you do press then you run the risk as well that the WR can be running a stop and start and when you press you are essentially having even a good CB wave bye-bye or tackle th WR when he goes long. I think we would see more press if we were more effective in stopping the run. Another big factor in why i think we do not press as much as I think Jauron and Fewell would like is our rookie safeties. Its great that Whitner and surprisingly Ko Simpson are such great athletes. However, time and time again we see that neither is a great player yet. We see it on examples like yesterday's game when Chad Jackson took in a long TD from Brady beating McGee who may well have been trying to run the much ballyhooed in this thread press coverage and young safety Ko Simpson had deep cover and clearly was not there. Likewise against MN when the WR beat McGee twice and this time it was Whitner who was not there. Do you really think that our safeties read well enough to run press coverage? Do you think that we stop the run well enough to put opposing Os into down and distance positions where we are able to take chances or dictate what they do?

Its a regular part of the standard cover 2 aand Tampa 2 packages. In the Tampa 2, the two safeties and the MLB divide the deep downfield coverage into three parts. while the CBs play a zone press coverage underneath on the two outside receivers. The two CBs play tight press coverage in the shallow zone 10-15 yards and if the WR continues to run a fly patterm or crosses into the center of the field, the CB lets him go for a pick-up in coverage by the safeties or the MLB playing centerfielder deep coverage. The Bills have used this system so far this season and we have seen big plays by the other team when a safety such as Whitner or Simpson recognizes to late that the reciever is going deep and gets over late to cover. This appears to be what happened on the MN deep ball that grazed off the WRs finger tips when it looked like what had happened was that McGee had simply been beaten by the stop and go when actually it was Whitner who bit on the stop and thought the WR was not coming deep into his deep cover zone when actually he only stutter stepped and came deep. I will look again at the tape of the Chad Jacksom TD (if I can stomach looking through this game again, because it would not surprise me if the guy who really got beat was not McGee who badly trailed Jackson, but Ko Simpson for not recognizing the play and not playing the cover deep like he was supposed to.

I disagree in that they clearly do mix up the scheme with press and lay back but as far as consistently playing ten yards back one only wishes this were the case on plays like Chad whathisname beating McGee deeo fir a TD today and on plays like the one near the end of the MN game where McGee bit on the stutter step amd fortunately the MN WR who was streaking toward the endzone with no one to stop of him let Johnson's pass trickle off his finger tips. Likewise in the redzone where the problem was not the Bills playing too tight but even in close quarters they let the WR get behind them so that today it was only because Brady led the WR too much that they missed a TD and in fact they did score a TDon a great catch where the WR simply beat the CB on a crossing pattern for the score. Time after time its been the lack of a pash rush putting little pressure on the QB that has allowed a score rather than a bend but do not breal approach.

The buck stops with the Jauron and I think that is right in this case. Its not that the players are that talented or good and if only we had a better scheme on O and D we would be great or even very good. Its that the schemes we have do not even seem to put the limtied talent players we have in the best position for them to do what their limited talent allows them to do best. We see this in their output as the season has dragged on with them actually performing well as the season began, but as other teams have gotten a fuller view of how we operate and begun to chart our tendencies and opposing players have more film to work with to see what are player like to do and what thy do not do well, we can simply be beaten. Despite Jauron being a D genius and Farrell calling a good game (some nice adjustments to stop Brady until BB and the boys adjusted to our changes and beat the crap out of us) the Tampa 2 is not a good scheme for us given the lack of pressure from this team. The opposing QB simply picks his spots to throw and we are simply not stopping the run with our lighter weight DTs and with our LBs missing tackles. Our CBs get beaten in the press coverage the Cover 2 allows and our safeties are talented athletes who do not have the experience to get back on deep threats when the CB press gets beat. The Rams East hybrid run by Fairchild simply has not cut it as an offense which forces Ds to adjust to it. I do not see us using the speed we seem to have as Josh Reed is a smart tough player who has gotten over the droppsies that caused his sophomore slump, but he is not enough of a speed threat to demand a double cover or force you to worry about him one on one. Shelton as best as I can tell has been a non-factor and actually notably bad when he does something noticeable. We may not have the OL for a higher risk style, but we do not have the players for the low risk style Jauron/Fairchild seem to want to run with Losman. Rather than have him hit 4 out of 5 passes as we try to do a controlled drive only to have him fumble ior misfire on the sixth pass attempt, I think we will have more success if we go for more and take higher risks on his first three shots at passing or bigger plays. he might throw an more INTs by going for it on the first three attempts at big plays, but if we get one big gain then we score or have more to work with. The result would be better than having him drive us downfield where then he turns it over or Lindell kicks the long FG. On O I would go to the spread more and run 3 WR sets with Evans, Price and Parrish forcing the question. JP will have to run for his life more. bit this is the game he is used to playing anyway. WM will not have the luxury of a FB blocker, but also will face far less 7 or 8 men in the box if we go to more of a spread scheme. Our players are not playing well (yet for some of the youngsters fortunately) but this scheme would work for a solid team and we simply need to take more risks if we want Ws.

I agree that McGee has disappointed as a CB and failed to live up to my expectations and hopes that he would be our #1 CB, However, McGee's failings do not mean at all that Clements is good and though he is performing better than last year so far, he has not performed at a level this year and certainly last that justifies the Pro level CB contract he appeared to deserve two years ago and which the market would have given him prior to last season or even before this one. Like Jennings, Clements can probably be find one team that will be willing to take a risk on him and give him one the higher CB contracts in the league. However, despite the fact (IMHO) that MC is markedly better than McGee, this is different that concluding that he deserves a top 5 CB contract, because if a team has the right match-up he can be picked on and is not a virtually guaranteed shut down corner. If FA availability and the market says we can get a run stopping DT or a solid rushing LDE to go with Schobel with the money we would pay to keep NC, I say let Clements go and buy a cheaper solid but not great CB and continue to train and increase the work of Youbouty. McGee is worth the extension he received for his KR prowess and to be a #2 CB, but recognizing this does not necessarily mean you pay Franchise level # fpr Clements if SF or some other team is willing to set the market at that level for NC. A consistent and solid pass rush would do a lot more for stopping the pass than spending all our bucks on NC.

The game was not entertaining at all. Losing I can deal with (hey I grew up in Chicago as a Cub fan). However, losing because while moving the ball quite a bit but fouling up with stupid dumb penalties (such as the roughing the passer idiocy after a rare 3rd down stop), getting no turnovers but fumbling the ball away simply made this an unentertaining game to watch. I rarely agree with Dierdorf about things, but his description of this game as like a day in the office for NE was wholly accurate. BB would destroy Bledsoe by pulling out some near piece of analysis and playcalling to unmask his weaknesses. Today they just seemed to handle the Bills straight up with no muss and no fuss. I tend toward being the analytical type even folks disagree with the analysis. However with this one, Jauron some how needs to break his normal analytical down to earth ways and find a way to create some passion in this team. Losing while trying hard or even getting a bad break I can deal with. Being boring in this "entertainment" activity I can read about in the paper later.

I actually feel I am in a somewhat unique position as a fan to judge the relative value of comparing the feeling as a fan of having your Bears team win SB XX and then having your Bills team get there but lose 4 straight as actually I think I was a full tilt fan of both teams. I was born in Chicago and rooting for the Bears was one of the things we did big time. The first NFL game I attended as a youth was the Bears game where Sayers suffered his devastating knee injury and I cried when I got home and found out how bad it was, I rooted for the Bears hard through the the thick and thin of life with Sayers and Butkus to seeing Booby Douglas accomplish the ignominious achievement of almost rushing for 1000 yards in a 14 game season as a QB. In 85 one of my housemate's Mom was quite confused by me llaving a phone message to the tune and rap patter of the Suoer Bowl Shufflw asking for messages. A buddy and I watched SB XX and despite the blow-out did not declare the game a victory for our side until the final tick for fear we might jinx it and NE would somehow put up 5 TDs in the last 15 seconds and give have us grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Having my team dominate the opponents and win it all that one year is one of my hreatest times as a sportsfan. Yet, 1989, I gpt married to a lifelong Buffaloanian and moved to the City of Good Neighbors for what has been the last 16+ years. My rooting and fan allegiance changed to a great extent. Anyplace that Buffalo has a professional team (the Bills instead of the Bears -in no small part helped by the Owners dismantling the Bears team which made me a part of an SB winner- and the Sabres over the Blackhawks). became my team. I still am a Die-Hard Cubs fan (and carry a card declaring me a member since 1959 in my wallet) and remain a Bulls fan (quite convenient actually during the Bulls glory days with MJ). I became a full-fledged rooter for the Bills which was shown to me by the pain I felt when Ronnie Harmon dropped a pass he should have caught and which was cemented for me when over 10K WNY gathered in Niagara Square to welcome their fallen heroes back after losing SB XXV and as a group forgave him when he was brought to tears apologizing for missing Wide right. I think it varies from person to person whether they would trade 4 consecutive losses for 1 win, but for me there is no question having experience the Bears win as a total rooter for them and having experienced the Bills 4 losses as a total rooterfor this team that I think the Bills experience is the far better one. Belichick devotes his life to winning and he gets paid to work on this all the time so I can easily see how winning is what it is all about for him. However, as a fan while winning or losing influences a lot how I feel when I watch my team, I am a fan of thje team and not simply a fan of winning, It matters a lot to me whether my team wins or loses, but I am not gonna stop being a Bills fan the weeks they lose and be a total Bills fan the weeks they win. How silly. How fair weather. I in fact would take the Soper Bowl XXV loss with us losing together as we all held hands at a friends house as we watched the kick and we forgave Scotty the next day over being a Bears fan sharing the SB XX win. Losing together in a real way was so much more meaningful than winning together that I found that Bills year to exceed for me the exoperience of being a fan to the exultation of winning it all with the Bears. The additional 3 years even with blowouts was simply icing on the cake to make the Bills fan experience really singular. Fortunately, i do not have to choose between the two expereiences and they both are great realities for me, but if the choice is between which great thing is a better great thing, there is no question for me that being a Bills fan for 4 losing SBs is a better great thing than being a Bears fan for one winning SB.

Not really. I fault SF for stupidly giving their cap room away but not JJ for following the rule and laughing all the way to the bank. Its SF's fault for not seeing that he was obviously injury prone as he failed to start or failed to finish one quarter of his final season with the Bills. As long as he truly his hurt I do not think he is guilty of anything.

My guess is that I missed whatever ruminations there were about the snowstorm that hit Buffalo last week, but believe it or not after 5 days I just got the power/DSL connection issues at my Buffalo home in good enough order to connect to the web. Whew. I did see the game (or what there was to see of it) at my father-in-laws Sunday, but it really is amazing what nature wrought in this part of the world. Miles to go unfotunately as there are still almost 100,000 homes and businesses without power in this area (and a balky transformer has us limping along at half power) but thanks to some good neighbor spirit and the Sabres folks are just dealing with it. Having missed a little time, maybe I will post some long messages to make up for it.

TD certainly sucked in trying to build a TEAM rather than merely a team, but not resigning Jennings was one of the smarter things he did.

That was certainly the wrap on him before as he apparently showed enough talent and desire to command a big contract from AZ, but then went south so thoroughly and quickly the made a huge investment in Davis to supplant him and he lost his job. He did seem have somewhat of a rep as a tough guy as he earned a nickname like "The Last Man Standing" on this team as the entire rest of the OL went out of games due to injury but he stayed in the line-up. Nevertheless he seemed to generate far less interest in the free market when he was an FA than his stats broguht to similar players so it is not illogical that the word was out around the NFL that you invested in him at your own risk. I think many fans are fairly superficial in which players they choose to like or dislike and actually a lot of the analysis put forward to judtify these bleatings comes off as mere self-important whing. My own posts are certainly so overly long that one can easily judge me to give them greater import than they deserve, but at least I do not feel I am whining because I at least know what I do not know and never offer my salvos to intend that they are dead lock certainty at all. In fact, the NFL is interesting because no one (no matter how much they think they know) really can be certain what will happen next or whether a player will excel or fall apart.