MDH

I don't think any of the teams bunched together will finish 9-7. None of them are consistent enough and they've shown that throughout the year. My guess is 8-8 gets it done and whoever has the best tie-breaker gets the nod. I think 8-7-1 would be good enough.

How is that "worst case?" Having both picks pan out while one gets traded away is not worst case. Worst case is neither QB pans out and the Bills suck for another decade.

Why? Because they had one solid win? Before that they lost 3 in a row - two of them to the flailing Dolphins and Redskins. They have a tough schedule with the Bengals, Giants, Broncos, Raiders and Chiefs. There is no way they escape that schedule without a loss or two.

Oh, I'm impressed with EJ's character. While me might sometimes let the pressure in the game get to him I've yet to see him carry it over to the following week or linger in his dealings with the media. Those are all good signs. The guy has all the character traits you want in a QB and a leader. He has pretty much all they physical attributes you want in a QB. I think the only thing we don't know is how "football smart" he is. Given enough time to get comfortable in a system will he be a guy who can quickly break things down and know where to go with the ball? What I do know is that if he's as hard of a worker as we've been told he'll at least be a serviceable QB. If he's football smart he could be a star.

And now we see why character is so important at the QB position. Very few QBs go through their first few seasons without significant growing pains. Guys with high character can gut it out and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Guys who are "me" guys start throwing people under the bus the moment things go wrong or let the pressure get to them and it compounds their problems. I'll give Geno credit, so far he's handling things much better than I thought he would in terms of taking the blame on his shoulders. Granted, his declining play tells me he's letting the pressure start to get to him and I can't say I blame him - that market is brutal. Going to the Jets was probably the worst possible scenario for him.

Talk about what have you done for me lately. One sub par game and now he's the one in decline. The guy is on pace for his best statistical season ever while QBing the NFL's best offense to go along with the NFL's best record. Newsflash, after about the age of 30 pretty much all humans are physically in decline. You'd never know it to look at either Peyton or Brady though. They both make up for it with experience/decision making which is why they're so successful. Hopefully Brady hits the wall soon though because I've tired of watching the Pats win the division year after year.

KC choke job. Next week will be 3 in a row. Late season swoon.

In the span of one second the Bills' day just got better. TDs by Carolina and KC.

Hey, your post looks familiar. Obviously I agree with you completely. And Hendricks didn't tap. GSP didn't have that sub on tight enough to cause anyone to tap. He didn't have the leverage he needed - which is why Hendricks was able to push his leg away (which is what looks like the tap) and easily get to his feet.

They do, and so does Cleveland. I agree that the stats Bruschi has cherry picked tend to be important ones but he weighs them evenly and just averages them out. That's not going to tell you much. I think I'd rather leave my advanced stats to guys who actually know a little math.

Is this a joke? Before his one good game Austin was considered one of the biggest disappointments of the rookie class. The guy would have to catch fire the last 3rd of the season.

This isn't exactly true. Cromartie didn't start running towards the goal line full speed and get passed by Goodwin. All of Goodwin's underneath stuff prior to this opened up the route. Cromartie starts running back pre-snap and after about 10 yards slows down anticipating a curl or a hook and which point Goodwin makes a slight move to the inside and turns on the burners. Cromartie has no chance to catch up. Nonetheless it takes nothing away from Goodwin's speed. Cromartie tried to cheat and stop the short route and got burned. If he plays the deep route the entire way he opens up the short stuff. Without safety help over the top the DB has to make a choice. With safety help over the top it opens up things for the other WRs. Goodwin's the kind of guy that will make the entire offense better just because of his speed. The one thing I'm interested in is how he'll do once guys start jamming him at the line - because it's going to happen. If he can make them pay for it they'll back off but if he has trouble...

While they could win all those game I could see them losing them all as well. When you have a QB who turns the ball over like Geno does you can lose any game.

What's with these bazaar stories always featuring roommates who are 40+? Who the hell lives with a roommate when you get to that age? I guess the kind of people who would do these moronic things...

SJ is the Bills best WR, he's not going to be phased out unless he can't stay healthy.

I just went through it and picked who I thought would win each game in addition to giving the Bills a win in each week up until week 17. By the last week of the season the Bills didn't even have to beat NE to get in... Of course, I'm like in 20th place in the TBD pick 'em contest so my prognostication skills aren't great.

What I question there is that it's 3rd down and every single target is running a go route. If Hackett wants to try something like that on 2nd and short I can see it, but on 3rd down? You don't give the kid any other choice? Manuel has no other option but to put the ball up with the blitz in his face and considering he got his right when he was throwing, it wasn't that bad of a throw either.

I've been hard on Spiller for making the wrong reads but those gifs show how putrid the OL was on some of those runs vs. the Jets. Sometimes you'd get multiple linemen not getting a hat on anybody. That's just pathetic.

I love that peole are still blaming the coaching staff and not Spiller himself. Spiller's struggles are a direct result of him not making good choices. There are plenty of opportunities he just doesn't see them. Spiller has horrible vision and makes bad decisions with the ball (like running backwards 7 yards vs. the Jets.). He'll likely see less and less playing time until he improves. Teams now know that they simply have to set the edge vs. Spiller and not let him get outside and he'll be ineffective (hell, he'll make himself even more ineffective by trying to run outside the edge setter.) There are lots of explosive players in the league but unless they learn to actually play the position and not just rely on their natural gifts they rarely amount to much.

"Geno Smith establishing himself as a Jets QB" I almost spit out my coffee on that one.

He brought Anthony Weaver and Jim O'Neill, DL and LB coaches respectively. I have no clue if they're ready to make the jump to DC though.

It depends what you mean. Are you going to say something like, "this week EJ showed poor footwork and an inability to drive the ball downfield to open WRs" or are you going to say, "he's shown me nothing, he sucks, what a wasted draft pick!" Because I saw very little of the former and quite a bit of the latter. There are a few posters who critique his game without moving into panic territory and I don't think you'll catch any flack for that. It's the posters (and there are more than just a few) who make declarations about his entire future based on a single game that end up look like irrational reactionaries. Don't be that guy.

I know Bills fans are excited about the Ds improvement but you'll notice that Pettine isn't getting any national attention. It'll take more than improvement to move his name into legit HC conversations. If the Bills D has a huge improvement from this year to next I can see his name coming up but I don't even see him as being a year away. It also takes more than just coaching up a unit to get a HC gig. Owners and GMs have to think a guy can make that jump - I have no clue how they feel about Pettine. What I do know is that it generally takes more than a year or two of running a D on your own to start getting noticed unless your D is dominant. The Bills D isn't dominant.

So people's complaints are that the coaching staff thinks too much of CJ's talent? That they should use him as a 3rd down, scat back and not a "give it to him until he pukes" type player? Hey, I'm on board with this but I've never thought of CJ as much more than what you're suggesting. Most of the people on this board who are complaining about the use of Spiller though are posters who thought he was something "special" and a top tier back. You're right, a top tier back should be able to run the ball without the need to have special plays called for him.

Per PFF: Bills have a lot of room under the cap. Pay your good players and if you're not going to pay them then use that money on other difference makers and bring them in. Letting players like Byrd go while they don't spend to the cap is one of the reasons the Bills have sucked for over a decade.