berndogg

Obviously the biggest problem is the talent of the players that are on the field both as a result of injuries and poor drafting/trades/free agent signings. But the Bills haven't just lost the last seven weeks, in six out of seven games, they've completely laid down once they were behind. The bills current talent level is really bad, but its not drastically worse than teams like cleveland, indy, KC, Washington, or for that matter, the Miami team that just whipped us again. All of those teams are out of the playoffs, yet they went out and put up a fight today and played with some pride. For whatever reason, the Bills have quit on Chan at this point. I'm not saying any players are making a conscious decision to not play hard on certain plays, but I know from playing on good and bad teams, that a team just plays with a certain energy when they believe in their coaches and in themselves. When they don't, they tend to play sluggish when things start to go downhill. I know these are grown men and professionals, but human beings are human beings and emotion is part of the game. I never thought I'd say this just a few weeks ago, but I think that the Bills performance during this losing streak is showing that Chan just doesn't have what it takes to get the most out of his guys. It's time for him to go.

For next year, the Bills' war room should only consist of an ipad with the yahoo fantasy app set to autodraft the highest player on the big board. It would save ralph a lot of money and I'm sure we'd end up with better players. Problem solved.

I'm not saying you're wrong about them having to be more aggressive, but Rivers was completely untouched on his fumble. Yes, there is a chance that he was rushing the throw, but the ball clearly slipped out of his hand. Saying Scott's pressure forced Rivers to fumble is like saying that a DB's footsteps caused a receiver to drop a pass. Once again, maybe they would be more effective if they blitzed more, but that play certainly doesn't prove it.

Yea, I was thinking about that because I have antonio gates in fantasy and was playing against ryan matthews. If a coach just decided for whatever reason that his goal was to win the game and have a particular rb, wr, or TE on his team to be the #1 fantasy player in the league for the week, he could do it with any player on his offense that he chose. Every single aspect of this defense (stopping the inside run, stopping the outside run, pass rush, deep pass coverage, intermediate pass coverage) is a glaring weakness. Just mind boggling. Alright, I'm done venting, I just had to get that off my chest, this is really bothering me.

Oh, the offense is pathetic too, don't get me wrong, but I've seen worse. Unfortunately I've seen worse bills offenses pretty recently. It's funny that you bring up that defensive td. I mean the only way this defense can make an impact is if the qb, untouched, drops the ball in his own endzone by accident. The play that really sticks out for me today (and there were many) was spencer johnson trying to keep contain as an olb while matthews got a big run on a pitch on third and one. I mean, we have a relatively immobile DT playing outside linebacker, its just unfathomable, there must be street free agents who could do better, I mean wow.

I know, and I watch an unhealthy amount of football and have for a long time, but I really can't think of a worse one ever. It really blows my mind.

I mean wow, they are really bad. That is all

I agree that Fitz isn't totally to blame by any means. Every aspect of this team besides Fred Jackson is subpar at best and horrendous at worst. However, Fitz has shown that he just doesn't have the arm to be a franchise qb. He does have all the tools to be the perfect back up. Since he can completely understand an offense, make checks at the line, spread the ball around, and take shots , when teams don't have extensive scouting reports/game plans for him, he can win you some games. But because of the fact that he has no zip on his outs and has a very inaccurate deep ball, once a team figures out what they have to take away and how to do it, he just doesn't have the talent to adjust. Obviously, he's getting paid way too much to be a back up, but if we're gonna be under the cap anyway, I wouldn't have a problem drafting/signing a franchise guy and keeping fitz around as a mentor/back up, I also wouldn't mind if they cut him if they put that money into a big time play maker. Either way, qb is absolutely a priority this offseason, Fitz isn't the answer.

That sounds awfully familiar. A lot like the old "Peyton Manning wouldn't be able to get anything done behind this offensive line" rationale that people would use to defend another Edwards who used to reside in Buffalo. Yes, the defensive talent is subpar, but plenty of coordinators are doing/have done more with less. The scheme is just terrible and the adjustments are even worse. George is in way over is head.

And found something he's good at, because that analysis was spot on.

Then Greenberg asked, "so are you going to chellenge him" and Chan goes, "well I'm not gonna tell you guys" I thought that was pretty funny. At the start of the interview they asked what he thought were the reasons for Buffalo's good start. Chan said its kind of a chicken and the egg thing (doesn't know if winning breeds confidence or if you need confidence to start winning), but either way right now guys believe in themselves, the coaches, and the system and there are a lot of different players who are capable of stepping up and making big plays.

I'm not saying the Bills should be favorites to win the division, Tom Brady still makes the Patriots a better team, but I won't be shocked if we get a couple good breaks, they get a couple bad ones, and Buffalo wins the division. The Steelers shot themselves in the foot repeatedly yesterday offensively, and they were never in danger of losing that game. New England's secondary is legitimately terrible, and I don't see how that's gonna change anytime soon. Guys were running wide open all over the field for Pittsburgh. I think as the season goes on, teams should find more ways to exploit this. On the other side of the ball, the Pats are pretty one dimensional. All you need to know about their running game is that Kevin Faulk, who is a 200 year veteran coming off a serious injury, and has never been a primary back, got the lions share of the work for New England's backfield. Once again, I understand that with Brady at the helm, this team can still win a shoot out with anyone, and can take any team out of a game early with some quick scores in the first half. However, given the fact that now they can also lose a shoot out to any team with an above average qb, and that their inability to run the ball will make it harder for them to sustain leads, I wouldn't be shocked at all if they slipped up a few more times this year in games they're favored to win. The Bills on the other hand (dominating performance against John Beck aside) will most likely remain a below average defense as well. However, George Wilson is a great safety, and Jarius Bird is above average. If Dareus continues to improve and Moats adds some legitimacy to the Pass rush, I could see this unit becoming respectable. Assuming we don't lose anymore offensive linemen (and Bell and/or Hairston come back healthy), I don't see why our offense can't remain a top 10 unit all year. Freddy is a top 3 back at this point, and with the versatility of Gailey's offense and the efficiency with which Fitzy runs it, no team can say "take away x and the Bills won't be able to move the ball", they just have too many options. Now, my best bet would still be the Bills end up 10-6 and the Pats end up 12-4. However, I wouldn't be shocked if it ended up the other way around. I'm not making any earth shattering predictions here, I just wanted to make this post because this week, for the first time in a long, long time, I have legitimate reason to believe that the Bills have a shot (like a 40% shot opposed to a 4% shot) to win the division even with the Pats having a healthy Brady, and I'm pretty excited about the possibility.

I remember not liking the signing, but I forgot how adamant I was about it, below was my reply to someone who said Fitz was at least better than Rex Grossman. I'm extremely happy about how off-base I was in my evaluation of Fitzpatrick. "I agree that Grossman sucks, but he has had some success in the league, moreso than fitzpatrick. I don't want him either, but I'd rather have signed a guy whose proven he can play than a complete nobody. I'm happy we addressed the center position and I'm way more concerned about how we're goning to address the d line/lb positions than I am about back up qb. I don't want to get into an argument about whether cow sh*t stinks worse than dog sh*t by comparing grossman to fitzpatrick, but Fitzpatrick stinks, there's no quesiton about it."

This. No one said the kiss was evil or anything like that, but it is no doubt unusual, therefore people are going to make jokes about it. The ones who take it a step further and get offended are the uptight ones.

I know, it's painful to think about. We basically knew we were going RB or LB at the top of that draft and there was a once in a generation talent at both positions that year and we just barely missed em. But that's just how life was for Bills fans back in the 2000s.

Because the oddsmakers determined that this was the spread that was most likely to draw 50% of the bettors' money on each side. Since the spread hasn't moved all week, it would appear that they were right.

Yea,I just feel like since the red rifle has already caught on nationally for Andy Dalton, that one is on its last legs

My friend who's a giants fan made it up and meant it to be derogatory (because Fitz has a "hand gun" arm opposed to a "cannon"), but I actually think it sounds kinda badass. What do you guys think?

I understand what you mean, because these are all pretty good teams that we can measure ourselves against. That being said, the games against NFC teams are technically the least important as far as playoff implications

Great article, he definitely seems mature beyond his years. Fitz and I are the same age and his social life sounds a lot more like my parents' than mine, and that's a very good thing for the team.

"But whatever the case, Nix said the Bills formally interviewed only three men for head coach: Perry Fewell, Leslie Frazier and Gailey. Assuming Fewell was a courtesy interview to satisfy the Rooney rule, that means the Bills had two serious interviews for coach." I couldn't get past the above quote. I've read it 3 times and I don't understand it. If two of the three candidates the Bills interviewed were black, then how was one of them only interviewed to satisfy the Rooney rule? I feel like Jerry Sullivan had a list of grievances he was going to air out and he was gonna get them all off his chest even if two of them completely contradicted each other.

I'm not going to tell you your opinion at that time was wrong, but this isn't revisionist history on my part. I clearly remember being thoroughly unimpressed with the Bills' performance that game despite the final score. I'll admit I was somewhat jaded by the fact that I was never a trent edwards fan even in his rookie season and wasn't going to give the team credit until I saw him put up some 300+ yds 3 td type games and that never happened at any time during the 5-1 streak. Anyone who says they know for sure now or knew for sure 3 years ago that this team is/isnt or was/wasn't a playoff team is wrong because its impossible to say. Week 3 of the 2007 season the Giants looked like the worst team in the NFL and they won the super bowl. However, we are seeing things out of the offense right now that we haven't seen in a long, long time, the same can't be said about the start of the '08 season.

I would say the 2008 Seahawks and 2011 Chiefs were pretty similar opening day opponents. Champions from weak divisions the prior year that looked respectable, but didn't exactly scare anybody (I've seen a lot of people here mention that the 'hawks won a playoff game in '07, but it was at home against the redskins, no one was touting that as a sign of future greatness). But after the '08 seahawks game I remember thinking, hey, a win's a win, but that was just a terribly played football game by both teams. After this year's home opener I was thinking, wow, I can't remember the last time I saw the Bills play that well in every facet of the game, and on the road no less.

I'm sold