Better but not good, unless....

[Buffalonian-at-Heart]

I'm going to attempt to put my thoughts into one post about my feelings for the upcoming season. If most of us would admit, all of our opinions about the upcoming season are unsubstantiated, none of us really know or have any special thoughts that somehow are able to see the future.

 

In saying that, there have been a myriad of thoughts about the entire off season, and now how its going to translate into the season. I for one think the entire spectrum of thoughts are not only possible, but I have been up and down that spectrum myself. I go from feeling this team won't compete to all the way to feeling they are going to surprise people on how competitive they will be. Wow, could there be more polar opposite feelings? But I have them both.

 

One day I'll lean towards believing we are going to struggle to be competitive. Anytime a team: changes the entire staff, switches an entire defensive scheme with only one year to put the proper pieces in place, one off season to teach the new system, didn't address the identified most important needs of the team identified by the Front Office - media - and fans alike Left Tackle and Quarterback. You could continue your pessimism by saying NT was at the very minimum the 3rd most important position needed and the cornerstone needed to switch to the 3-4, and we addressed that position with a rookie who is thought by many to be drafted above more talented players.

 

Then I'll get a totally different opinion that comes over me. Optimism buys me a ticket on "The Bills are on their way to being significant" bandwagon. Our current QB core is better than anyone we could have drafted and Gailey has the ability to coach one of them up, Spiller is going to make the offensive line issues less present, Troup is the perfect fit NT that should have been chosen over "more popular" names, we got bigger on defense and have a plethora of Linebackers to field a strong group.

 

As I stated earlier, the concerns about this team and the reasons to be optimistic are all possible of being true reasons for the success or failure of this team.

 

For those of you that have made it this far through my post and haven't hit the back button out of sheer boredom, your probably anticipating me to take a neutral position on the Bills upcoming season. And to say that some of the positive things we feel will come true, and some of the concerns will be true, therefor we should take the approach as fans that we won't be real good, but we should see enough positives to start feeling good about the future. Well Heck no.

Stop stop with thinking I'm just going to ignore all the issues and go on a rant of how good we're going to be, and how our division foes acquisitions will blow up in their face, blah blah blah.

 

I think this team has a real chance of being good. In my view our ability to be good hinges on one person, and one person only (in regards to the overall team being good); Trent Edwards. If Trent wins the QB job, this team is on its way. It will mean that an excellent QB talent evaluator (Gailey), chose him, and that a new commitment to Trent will have been made by the new regime. I think we should all be hoping Trent wins the job, for what it will mean to our future. If he doesn't win the job, we are still in project QB mode or drafting one next year mode. Which in my view means the ability to compete for the division won't happen till the QB to build around arrives.

[Mr_Blizzard]

I think if we play "Marty-Ball" and get the guy in position to know he can count on the running game to get first downs, we will be better.