eball Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 i knew after watching the first half tonight that this board would be a mess. you guys are unbelievable. did losman look like a star tonight? no. the INT returned for a TD was a bad throw. he had another sure INT dropped. he missed some throws. but did he look like a scrub or 3rd stringer? also no. he made some VERY nice throws and good decisions. the 2nd INT was his receiver's (aiken) fault. the bottom line is this -- preseason doesn't mean crap. case in point: the colts went 0-5 and were shellacked by cinci tonight. i said earlier in the week that the ONLY "must" in this game was to come out of it healthy. despite some scares (clements, peters) it appears that this was accomplished. i don't care about getting the offense some "confidence" going into the season. ask the players if it matters. finally, i'm looking forward to a real game plan and 60 minutes of meaningful football. with all due respect to the great fans who frequent this board, if any of you think you can predict the bills' (and losman's) success or failure this season based upon this (or any) preseason game, you are sadly mistaken. go ahead with your gloom and doom projections and calls for holcomb to start. understand this -- mularkey doesn't want the bills to lose. if losman is performing in such a manner that he's hurting buffalo's chances to win, mularkey will make a change. to suggest otherwise is pure folly. see you in orchard park next sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted September 3, 2005 Author Share Posted September 3, 2005 seriously...i'm still waiting to see the statistical model that will correlate preseason stats and W-L record with regular season performance. anybody??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 seriously...i'm still waiting to see the statistical model that will correlate preseason stats and W-L record with regular season performance. anybody??? 427865[/snapback] Well...I've always had the suspicion that in general better teams do worse in the preseason. I can't prove it, but my justification of the theory is that the better teams go into preseason with their starters pretty much set, so can afford to play their backups and camp fodder more, whereas the worse teams actually need to give their starters the practice (either because they've changed their lineups in the off-season...or they're frankly just that bad). Ergo, you have a good team's backups playing a bad team's starters...and generally even bad starters will beat good backups (unless it's Buffalo playing Pittsburgh in the last game of the regular season ). Thus, worse teams have better preseason records. It's probably BS...but at least it sounds pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Well...I've always had the suspicion that in general better teams do worse in the preseason. I can't prove it, but my justification of the theory is that the better teams go into preseason with their starters pretty much set, so can afford to play their backups and camp fodder more, whereas the worse teams actually need to give their starters the practice (either because they've changed their lineups in the off-season...or they're frankly just that bad). Ergo, you have a good team's backups playing a bad team's starters...and generally even bad starters will beat good backups (unless it's Buffalo playing Pittsburgh in the last game of the regular season ). Thus, worse teams have better preseason records. It's probably BS...but at least it sounds pretty good. 427868[/snapback] Man, you're so wrong its not even funny. Look at the Cincinnati/Indy game tonight. Indy got shutout by the bengals. You know how bad they are gonna get ass !@#$ed in the regular season cause they got shutout tonight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted September 3, 2005 Author Share Posted September 3, 2005 Well...I've always had the suspicion that in general better teams do worse in the preseason. I can't prove it, but my justification of the theory is that the better teams go into preseason with their starters pretty much set, so can afford to play their backups and camp fodder more, whereas the worse teams actually need to give their starters the practice (either because they've changed their lineups in the off-season...or they're frankly just that bad). Ergo, you have a good team's backups playing a bad team's starters...and generally even bad starters will beat good backups (unless it's Buffalo playing Pittsburgh in the last game of the regular season ). Thus, worse teams have better preseason records. It's probably BS...but at least it sounds pretty good. 427868[/snapback] didn't rich kotite's jets go 5-0 in the preseason before a 1-15 regular season back in the late 80s? you may be on to something there. of course, i'm sure you already knew that my question was a loaded one. while your theory makes some sense, i don't think there is any way to go back through NFL history and accurately predict regular season records based upon the preseason. still, the fans seem to live and die with these meaningless results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 didn't rich kotite's jets go 5-0 in the preseason before a 1-15 regular season back in the late 80s? you may be on to something there. And the Superbowl Bills routinely "lost" preseason...and only played their starters a series or so. It's when I first developed the theory. of course, i'm sure you already knew that my question was a loaded one. while your theory makes some sense, i don't think there is any way to go back through NFL history and accurately predict regular season records based upon the preseason. still, the fans seem to live and die with these meaningless results. 427874[/snapback] There's a good reason for that. It's because we haven't seen any football in six months, and we're jonesin'. By September 12th, no one's even going to remember the preseason record. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campy Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 still, the fans seem to live and die with these meaningless results. 427874[/snapback] The results are meaningless, no doubt. The performance of our new inexperienced QB is not, and he's been anything but stellar. I'm not ready to throw myself off a bridge just yet but I am a little concerned with whether he'll be able to get it together in a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 And the Superbowl Bills routinely "lost" preseason...and only played their starters a series or so. It's when I first developed the theory. There's a good reason for that. It's because we haven't seen any football in six months, and we're jonesin'. By September 12th, no one's even going to remember the preseason record. 427877[/snapback] Doooooood, its all about the Colts/Bengals game! You just watch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarthur31 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 seriously...i'm still waiting to see the statistical model that will correlate preseason stats and W-L record with regular season performance. anybody??? 427865[/snapback] Reference last year and the year before. The way we started was craptacular! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan in San Diego Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 You might be onto something here. Can someone do some stat analysis and see if this bears out ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obie_wan Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 i knew after watching the first half tonight that this board would be a mess. you guys are unbelievable. did losman look like a star tonight? no. the INT returned for a TD was a bad throw. he had another sure INT dropped. he missed some throws. but did he look like a scrub or 3rd stringer? also no. he made some VERY nice throws and good decisions. the 2nd INT was his receiver's (aiken) fault. the bottom line is this -- preseason doesn't mean crap. case in point: the colts went 0-5 and were shellacked by cinci tonight. i said earlier in the week that the ONLY "must" in this game was to come out of it healthy. despite some scares (clements, peters) it appears that this was accomplished. i don't care about getting the offense some "confidence" going into the season. ask the players if it matters. finally, i'm looking forward to a real game plan and 60 minutes of meaningful football. with all due respect to the great fans who frequent this board, if any of you think you can predict the bills' (and losman's) success or failure this season based upon this (or any) preseason game, you are sadly mistaken. go ahead with your gloom and doom projections and calls for holcomb to start. understand this -- mularkey doesn't want the bills to lose. if losman is performing in such a manner that he's hurting buffalo's chances to win, mularkey will make a change. to suggest otherwise is pure folly. see you in orchard park next sunday. 427829[/snapback] It's not the W/L record that is disturbing. It is the piss poor execution on both sides of the ball- including penalties. JP is showing he needs more time - but as good as the D may be- it will difficult to overcome turnovers. JP did not look good lst night in that regard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frez Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 It's not the W/L record that is disturbing. It is the piss poor execution on both sides of the ball- including penalties. JP is showing he needs more time - but as good as the D may be- it will difficult to overcome turnovers. JP did not look good lst night in that regard 427960[/snapback] My thoughts also. You hit the nail right on the head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven in MD Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 It is not the W/L at the end of the game that matters. It is the W/L after the 1st stringers are benched. The problem with the analysis is that many teams (good ones) do not play their starters more than a quarter. When Marv was here, the Bills starters played a few series and it was done. He used the preseason to assess talent for cuts, NOT to get the starters into a groove. Good crisp practice works well to keep the starters sharp. This is the biggest difference in the TD era of the Bills. His coaches (GW and MM) both play their starters too long in the preseason. How it translates to Wins/Losses during the season is to be seen. But I can say that I am not a GW fan, but I would take him back after he spent a few years with Gibbs. I think he had learned alot about how to coach football players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faderphreak Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Not fer nuthin, and by no means am I saying this model of the Bills is anything close to the teams of the early nineties, but I don't seem to recall the Bills winning many preseason games, when they were on the Super Bowl runs. Patience... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macaroni Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Man, you're so wrong its not even funny. Look at the Cincinnati/Indy game tonight. Indy got shutout by the bengals. You know how bad they are gonna get ass !@#$ed in the regular season cause they got shutout tonight? 427870[/snapback] The Indy - Cincy result just MAY have been because not ONE Indy offensive starter even played a down last night ...... and only two Indy Defensive starters even got in the game. OTOH ..... the Bills starters pretty much played the first half last night against a combination of a piss poor teams first and second stringers. While I will agree that any stats gleened from the preseason "season" can pretty much be thrown out the window as far as projecting how any given team will do during the regular season ........ you also must admit ..... piss poor "on field - real time" performance should give an indication of the general talent level of the players on the field at the time. And I for one would have thought our first string O & D should have mopped up the field with the Detroit team first and second stringers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finknottle Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 You might be onto something here. Can someone do some stat analysis and see if this bears out ? 427943[/snapback] I did one a few years ago. There is a small correlation, but it's not what you would expect. I don't remember the details, but it was something like a positive bulge at 2-2, with things looking worse for winless and undefeated teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted September 3, 2005 Author Share Posted September 3, 2005 It is not the W/L at the end of the game that matters. It is the W/L after the 1st stringers are benched. The problem with the analysis is that many teams (good ones) do not play their starters more than a quarter. When Marv was here, the Bills starters played a few series and it was done. He used the preseason to assess talent for cuts, NOT to get the starters into a groove. Good crisp practice works well to keep the starters sharp. This is the biggest difference in the TD era of the Bills. His coaches (GW and MM) both play their starters too long in the preseason. How it translates to Wins/Losses during the season is to be seen. But I can say that I am not a GW fan, but I would take him back after he spent a few years with Gibbs. I think he had learned alot about how to coach football players. 428005[/snapback] anyone who thinks buffalo played their 1st string offense the entire first half last night needs to go back and look at the tape. by the 2nd series, i believe, the OL was being substituted regularly. there were constantly different WRs and TEs in there. this was NOT the bills' first string offense for the first half. the 1st string defense played two series at most. mularkey isn't playing his starters too long. he's just trying to get JP more in-game action. trying to draw conclusions from these results is just not logical. note: i'm not saying that losman is going to light things up once the regular season starts. i'm only saying that predictions of failure are just as ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayzer32 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 the bottom line is this -- preseason doesn't mean crap. case in point: the colts went 0-5 and were shellacked by cinci tonight. 427829[/snapback] The Colts have also proved the last few years that they don't need to look impressive in the pre-season. They are a well oiled machine. If I were a Colts fan I would have no fears of a bad season. The Bills have not proved anything, except for the fact that Lindell still sucks. I am worried about this season, because we still have a major discipline problem, the running game has looked bad, JPs inexperience is showing, the O-line looks like a typical Bills O-line and the special teams don't look as strong. I have not seen anything besides the defense to get me excited. Pre-season records don't mean squat, but the play of your 1st team offense says something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan in San Diego Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I agree. I wish people would get a grip. It is only preseason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayzer32 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I agree. I wish people would get a grip. It is only preseason. 428156[/snapback] Anyone who thinks the Bills are fine is smoking crack. Saying it's only preseason is a cop out. If the Bills start off 1-3 or 0-4, I suppose we shouldn't worry because it's only the 1st 4 games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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