MDH

My guess is he's kept out of the game in crunch time because the team is going to be passing and FJ picks up the blitz much better than Spiller.

They were down 14 heading into the 4th quarter, they shouldn't be handing the ball of that often. The problem wasn't his 4th quarter carries it was the carries up until that point. If Spiller is running well and Fitz is struggling why does Chan keep calling Fitz's number?

To be fair they had held the Colts to 13 points today and did a good job last week as well. That being said they had one three and out all day (that I can remember) and even when they force a punt it's usually after a few first downs. It's a tough call to make because it was 4th and long and you're putting the entire game in the hands of the O picking that up because if they don't you're not driving 80+ yards with no timeouts left to win. The Bills had 3 timeouts and if the D did it's job the Bills would have had the ball near midfield with over 2 minutes left. What do you think had the greatest odds of happening, picking up that first with an O that struggled all day or holding them to a 3 and out with the D? I call it a tossup.

Absolutely, it should have been a safety. That being said, the Bills sh*t the bed the rest of the way. Colts made a major mistake throwing on third down and Bills couldn't make them pay for it.

I'm so angry right now. How dumb is this team? They just gave them 3 free points. Why on earth are you throwing the ball with 55 seconds left at your own 10 yard line when they only have 2 timeout. Just run out the damn half. Run the ball a few times and if you pick up the first down THEN try to throw the ball. The Colts would have gotten the ball back with like 13 seconds left with no timeouts. Just infuriating

I agree. I lost a fantasy game this year by half a point when my kicker missed a PAT and I got negative 2 points instead of the 1 for the kick.

Why is Brady in the game, dropping back and throwing downfield when they are up 42-12 with 12 minutes left? Just not smart. They're asking for him to get injured in meaningless minutes.

Not sure how you come to the conclusion that the Bills are getting better. They started the season 3-3 and have gone 1-3 since then. If that's "better" I'd hate to see what you think is "worse."

Brady does it at 40.7% (42 of 103)

After playing with it for awhile there aren't too many realistic scenarios where the Bills make the playoffs and lose this week to Indy.

I can't say I disagree with you as I'm scratching my head at some of the calls but looking at the numbers I was surprised to see that the Bills convert 3rd downs 39.5% of time - good for 13th in the league. I was also surprised to see that 43.2% of Fitzpatrick's 3rd down pass attempts result in 1st downs (good for 12th in the league.) This led me to look up 3rd and short run stats. The Bills rank 26th in the league here picking up 1st downs via the run 36% of the time on 3rd and short. Perhaps thats the reason Gaily doesn't hand the ball off in those situations.

FJ was hurt and came back too early. In the past 3 games he's played he's looked like the Jackson of old. In two of those three games he's put up over 100 yards from scrimmage while splitting time. If I'm disappointed in anything it's that he can't stay healthy.

Don't see how anything is a bigger disappointment than the D as a whole and that's all on Wannstadt. The D was supposed to carry the Bills this year and thus far they've been the biggest factor in the Bills' struggles. As much as it pains me to say it Dareus is another big disappointment. I thought he was the best player in his draft class and after a decent 1st year he's been crap most of the time this year. He gets pushed around, takes lots of plays off and has been mostly ineffective He did have a solid game vs. Miami though. I've seen enough from Williams in the past 3 weeks to think that he's turning things around and the run D on his side of the field has been pretty good all year long but for the first 7 games he was a pretty big let down.

I was going to say the same thing. We watch Fitz every snap of the season and then a game or two of the other guys and a bunch of highlight shows (where there are no incompletions.) Even when you watch those guys you don't get irritated by every mistake and hence they aren't magnified like they are when you're rooting for your team. Every QB misses open guys, every QB has bad throws that get caught by the WR who has to make adjustments which cost him YAC. I will say that I agree with the poster who said that the D gets to cheat up on the Bills because their lack of a deep threat but I blame that mostly on Gaily. Whether Fitz is great at the deep throw or not you have to chuck it up a few times a game to keep the D honest.

While I get what you're trying to say (and agree with you that on paper the Bills appear better) the bottom line is your (and my) evaluations are all subjective. They can be argued and debated about who is better where (and I'd argue that the Bills aren't better at CB or LB right now - let's see if Gilmore pans out.) As Buddy himself says, "show me the baby." The non-subjective way to grade a GM - wins. Before Buddy got the job the Bills won 6, 7, 7, 7 in the previous 4 seasons. He hasn't improved on that one bit. Maybe he will this year but right now the Bills are on pace to win between 6-7 games. I'll give him the rest of this season before passing judgement though it is curious to me how Bills fans continously give regimes 3 years to turn things around when many other teams in the league don't need that time to make a playoff run. The Bills are the only team in NFL history to be on a 12 year "3 year rebuild." If the Bills show genuine improvement the rest of the way (particularly on D) and finish with at least 7 wins I'd be for given them another year. At least we'd get off the 3 year cycle of rebuilding the team.

Dalton isn't really a hindsight pick. There were lots of writers who sung Dalton's praises and thought the kid would be a steal in the late first, early 2nd. Of course, his biggest flaw is his lack of a cannon arm so I'm sure people on here would kill him for it.

Green Bay had the 5th ranked D during their SB year and allowed 15 ppg (good for 2nd in the league.) New Orleans, on the other hand, was ranked 25th in yardage and allowed 21.3 ppg (good for 20th in the league.) It should be noted though that this Saints D also caused 39 turnovers (2nd in league) which gave the NO offense short field after short field. The were turnover machines that year. So despite people's claims that an elite QB can do it all by himself it's simply not true. Football is, and will continue to be, a team game.

That sounds like a stat. I thought you didn't like stats? "1/8th as good" is a kinda/sorta stat too. This one makes two. Come on, admit it, you secretly love stats! You keep trying to sneak them into your posts. Granted, they're made up stats, but a made up stat is still a stat!

But its easier to replace half of the D than it is to find an elite QB. Best bet is to try and draft a QB and fix the D in the process. They're not mutually exclusive. As for Rivers, I doubt they'd let him go but he'd be an improvement over Fitz.

Easy? Man, 10 years of church sounds as bad as the death penalty to me.

I'm not an "apologist" who makes him sound like a QB to build the team around for a decade. I readily admit his flaws (and he has quite a few.) However, I also defend him against people who try to make him sound like the bottom of the barrel of NFL QBs or call him "historically bad." I guess this is where we differ. I don't speak in hyperbole to make a point. The people who trash Fitz seem to think that those defending him are taking the total opposite perspective. As if there are only two sides to this coin and you either think Fitz is horrible or he's elite. The problem is that nobody is arguing the latter. People just point out that he's average. The Bills don't need him to make the playoffs to prove my point, Fitz proves it every single game and every single season. He can't put a team on his back and win consistently - that's what elite guys do. But when the D shows up to play the team can, and does, win. Fitz is capable of doing his part in the collective. Lots don't like that and want to search for a new QB. I'm all for it, just don't throw away the average one we've already got in the process and don't be over-the-top and make it sound like he's the end-all-be-it of bad QBing. And no, I don't think you have a low football IQ because we don't see eye-to-eye on this thing. I've seen some of your other posts and you make solid points on other issues. And as I said above, I'd take Newton over Fitz for the long term as well. I just don't think Cam is a very good QB right now.

Now this is an interesting point you've made here. "1/8th as good." Fascinating. You are not a stat guy but Fitz is 1/8th "as good" as Cam. So, if not by stats then what measurable is he "1/8th as good?" How did you come up with 1/8th? Can one measure 1/8th of arbitrary? Let's take this a bit farther. I don't have your actual rankings of QBs so I'm sure I'll misplace a QB but I think everybody will get the idea. We'll call this the CAM NEWTON RATING SYSTEM. It's like QBR and passer ratings, only better! In this system, everything is relative to Cam Newton. Now, I've taken some liberties but I think your system would look something like this. CNRS 1/8th as good as Cam Newton - Ryan Fitzpatrick 1/4th as good as Cam Newton - Tony Romo 1/2 as good as Cam Newton - Matt Schaub 1 - Cam Newton (the bar by which all other QBs are rated) 2 times as good as Cam Newton - Matt Ryan 4 times as good as Cam Newton - Peyton Manning 5 times as good as Cam Newton - Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers Obviously, these rankings aren't complete but you get the idea. You should like this system, there are numbers there but there aren't really any stats to confuse the brain. And since you're not a stat guy this is right up your alley! I think if we worked with this a bit it could really catch on. Am I still being condescending? How about 1/8th of condescending?

While it might take you 2 hours to find these stats it took me all of 5 minutes. I know, it's a crazy idea, getting facts to back up an argument I knew it would be lost on you but I took the 5 minutes and did it anyway. But of course anybody who doesn't agree with you isn't bright and any facts brought into the discussion don't matter because you know your fooseball. Got it.

Like a blindman uses his eyeballs to cross the street. The fact that you want to claim Cam is better at every single facet of the game just demonstrates your inability to rationally break this down. Peyton Manning isn't better at every facet of the game than Fitz, neither is Brady (I'll let you figure out what Fitz is better at.) Yet Cam is? Stats aren't everything but your total disregard for them illustrates that you can't make a valid argument so you simply resort to "I KNOW WHAT I SEE AND YOU DUMB IF YOU NO AGREE WITH ME!" If that's the case what's the point of a discussion? As for Cam's accuracy it might be on par with Fitz's - which is to say, it's not good - but it's not "light year's better." I've seen the guy repeatedly miss open guys in the short to intermediate range. Cam's accuracy this year: behind Los: 71.7% 1-10yds in air: 61.9% 10-20yds in air: 48.1% That's sh*t accuracy no matter what your eyeballs tell you. Fitz's accuracy this year: Behind LoS: 85.9% 1-10 yds in air: 67.2% 10-20 yds in air: 47.4% Not great either but better than Cam's. As I said, I'll give you Cam's deep ball is much better than Fitz but his short to intermediate throws aren't better than Fitz's and these are the bulk of a QB's throws. But don't let facts get in the way of your eyeballs. Btw, for comparison for both look at a guy like Peyton who is at 77% for short throws (1-10 yds) and over 50% for intermediate (10- 20yds).

It's funny you make excuses for Cam because of his D but not for Fitz. The only thing Cam has going for him right now is his youth and potential. If you're going strictly based on current performance Cam is not better than Fitz. Will he be better? Maybe. I'd pick Cam on the Bills over Fitz based purely on the chance that he'll improve whereas I know exactly what I'll get from Fitz. But if you asked who I'd rather have at QB this week I'd probably lean towards Fitz. The only things Cam does better than Fitz right now are throw the deep ball and running. His accuracy isn't better, his leadership isn't better, his command of his offense isn't better, his pre-snap and post-snap reads aren't better. Granted, I wouldn't expect them to be better right now given that this is his 2nd year in the league. Hopefully he'll learn. As others have pointed out though there are plenty of guys who looked good for a season and then fell on their faces. You are incredibly irrational when it comes to Fitz as proved by your statement that he's "historically bad" in a different thread. People might want to question your football IQ given that statement.