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[Sisyphean Bills]

To start off, if you want to blame the Redskins losing on Sean Taylor's death, I can just as easily blame the Broncos loss on Kevin Everett getting paralyzed.

No offense intended, but I credited the Bills with winning that game. It was their only win all season against a better than garbage opponent, in fact. That game and the Cowboys game would be the two games to use as springboards of hope, in fact.

 

I mentioned the Taylor murder because it was obviously a huge disruption and distraction for the Redskins in that game. Taylor was the leader of that team and an All-Pro. He wasn't just hurt badly, he's dead. Football players get hurt all the time; but, teams don't expect their leaders -- a better comparison would be Jim Kelly or Bruce Smith -- to turn up dead in the middle of the season. The murder (as well as some solid play by their backup QB) actually turned into a rallying cry to propel them into the playoffs; but, the team was still in shock when the Bills came calling.

And I agree that the offense was horrible, for the reasons I mentioned, while the defense got pushed around by the better offenses. Again the Bills addressed many of the problem areas over the off-season.

I don't disagree, totally; but, I do have a minor semantics quibble. The Bills have attempted to address some of the major weaknesses of 07. It has not been proven that they have actually fixed the problems. Indeed, even if they have fixed some problems, it is quite probable that other issues will come to the fore.

But this will be a new season with a new schedule. They play the NFC West and I can see them going 3-1 in those games, maybe even 4-0. I can also see them going 4-2 in the division, losing to the Jets and Patriots (they'll probably win the division early and rest their starters in the season finale) once. I also see them beating the Raiders, Cardinals, and Chiefs. They might be able to sneak a win over the Broncos, who have had a habit of fading the past 2 seasons, but winning in Denver is tough. So I can see 10-6 to 11-5.

Yep. I agree that the schedule this year is soft on paper and that is a good argument for being optimistic for 08. OTOH, while we Bills fans are hoping it is the Bills turn, the opposition is also trying to address their weaknesses and the fickle fates haven't cast their dice just yet as to which moves pan out and which tank.

[ax4782]

Forget his time in Detroit, here is the list of Pro Bowl talent he had, i.e., players that made the PB on his watch, in Chicago:

 

Glyn Milburn

Brian Urlacher

Olin Kreutz

Ted Washington

Marty Booker

Jerry Azumah

 

Do we have that kind of talent here, now?

 

Other notable players in Chicago on Jauron's watch:

 

Keith Traylor

Alex Brown

RW McQuarters

Anthony Thomas

Leon Johnson

Rosevelt Colvin

 

Yeah, pretty trashy collection of talent there.

 

So, would you then say that your statement is true, or false?

 

It begins again. I'll gladly spar on this issue. I would note that most of the players you have cited as being under Jauron's watch at that time were defensive players, minus a couple. Their D was always good, even during the worst years that Jauron was there. That wasn't the problem. Their problem was on offense where they had a terrible QB situation, a lot of injuries and Marty Booker and Anthony Thomas as their top two players. Not exactly a multi-headed hydra monster for DCs to fear at night. Our situation is starting to right itself as well. Our collection of talent on D is pretty good. I don't think we have linebacker in Urlacher's league, but the three starters we have are definitely very good, and Posluzny has a chance to develop into a guy with numbers similar to Urlachers.

 

Here's the list of folks on the team now to counter the point.

 

Marcus Stroud

Aaron Schobel

Kawika Mitchell

Donte Whitner

Terrence McGee

Angelo Crowell

Lee Evans

Marshawn Lynch

Jason Peters

Derrick Dockery

 

Others arguably make the list, but last year we had many of the same problems that his Bears teams did. Instability at QB and injuries on both sides of the ball. Again, I think that Jauron is probably on his last leg, and if he can't do anything with the talent that we have now, and we can't win 9 or 10 games, I think, barring a lot of superceding causes, he will probably be gone. If he can't win with this group, he will have proven that he is nothing more than a mediocre coach, but I say that I won't pass judgment until I see what the end of the season brings. I'm not jumping up and down with fervor for the guy, but I do think that he gets a bit of a bad rap for his time in Chicago where the situation and circumstances were not exactly conducive to a winning atmosphere. And the FO in Chicago after Jauron left made a concerted effort to improve the team which helped Lovie Smith, who hasn't really been able to repeat his "great coaching performance" of 06, continue on that path.

[Adam]

The bottom line is that we have fatal flaws on both lines- both are improves, no doubt, but very flawed. On top of that, the RB's don't help protect the passer- who is very inexperienced, and there is 1 quality target to throw to.

 

Not a set up for a winning record or playoffs.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Actually, the list of Jauron's Bills Pro Bowlers is only

 

snip

Aaron Schobel

Jason Peters (selected but did not make it to Hawaii)

snip

 

and Brian Moorman.

 

Slim Pickens would be proud.

[keepthefaith]

It begins again. I'll gladly spar on this issue. I would note that most of the players you have cited as being under Jauron's watch at that time were defensive players, minus a couple. Their D was always good, even during the worst years that Jauron was there. That wasn't the problem. Their problem was on offense where they had a terrible QB situation, a lot of injuries and Marty Booker and Anthony Thomas as their top two players. Not exactly a multi-headed hydra monster for DCs to fear at night. Our situation is starting to right itself as well. Our collection of talent on D is pretty good. I don't think we have linebacker in Urlacher's league, but the three starters we have are definitely very good, and Posluzny has a chance to develop into a guy with numbers similar to Urlachers.

 

Here's the list of folks on the team now to counter the point.

 

Marcus Stroud

Aaron Schobel

Kawika Mitchell

Donte Whitner

Terrence McGee

Angelo Crowell

Lee Evans

Marshawn Lynch

Jason Peters

Derrick Dockery

 

Others arguably make the list, but last year we had many of the same problems that his Bears teams did. Instability at QB and injuries on both sides of the ball. Again, I think that Jauron is probably on his last leg, and if he can't do anything with the talent that we have now, and we can't win 9 or 10 games, I think, barring a lot of superceding causes, he will probably be gone. If he can't win with this group, he will have proven that he is nothing more than a mediocre coach, but I say that I won't pass judgment until I see what the end of the season brings. I'm not jumping up and down with fervor for the guy, but I do think that he gets a bit of a bad rap for his time in Chicago where the situation and circumstances were not exactly conducive to a winning atmosphere. And the FO in Chicago after Jauron left made a concerted effort to improve the team which helped Lovie Smith, who hasn't really been able to repeat his "great coaching performance" of 06, continue on that path.

 

 

This is all great stuff. Regardless of what any of us think, Jauron will be evaluated on his W-L record. I just happen to be in the camp that doesn't think he'll win a playoff game as coach of the Bills. Go ahead, Dick, show me I'm wrong. It's that simple.

[Adam]

This is all great stuff. Regardless of what any of us think, Jauron will be evaluated on his W-L record. I just happen to be in the camp that doesn't think he'll win a playoff game as coach of the Bills. Go ahead, Dick, show me I'm wrong. It's that simple.

If you fire someone, you BETTER have somebody better available. You don't change just to change. If they do that AGAIN, they can move to Toronto, Los Angeles or the Moon for all I care.

 

Jauron is a good football coach who has been saddled with bad teams rebounding for terrible leadership

[VOR]

See VOR, this is exactly why you have little credibility and no one takes you seriously.

LOL! Should we take a vote on which one of us people take more seriously?

 

The silliness of equating these two doesn't even need further explanation.

If you say so. A teammate getting paralyzed during a game (with no one knowing if he'd ever walk again, at that time), while not exactly the same as a teammate getting killed prior to a game, has a profound psychological effect. It's no surprise though that you either can't appreciate it, or choose to refute it.

[Sisyphean Bills]

The bottom line is that we have fatal flaws on both lines- both are improves, no doubt, but very flawed. On top of that, the RB's don't help protect the passer- who is very inexperienced, and there is 1 quality target to throw to.

 

Not a set up for a winning record or playoffs.

Just curious, but you mentioned in another post that the "1 quality target" wasn't really a complete WR. Evans had 55 catches (45th in the NFL) for 849 yards (32nd in the NFL), a 3.7 YAC last year (below the top 50), and 5 TDs (36th in the NFL). What is the definition of "quality"?

 

Note that Steve Smith, who is a similar player, had superior stats in every one of these categories and he had no help, was on a bad offense, and his QB situation was a total train wreck.

[VOR]

No offense intended, but I credited the Bills with winning that game. It was their only win all season against a better than garbage opponent, in fact. That game and the Cowboys game would be the two games to use as springboards of hope, in fact.

 

I mentioned the Taylor murder because it was obviously a huge disruption and distraction for the Redskins in that game. Taylor was the leader of that team and an All-Pro. He wasn't just hurt badly, he's dead. Football players get hurt all the time; but, teams don't expect their leaders -- a better comparison would be Jim Kelly or Bruce Smith -- to turn up dead in the middle of the season. The murder (as well as some solid play by their backup QB) actually turned into a rallying cry to propel them into the playoffs; but, the team was still in shock when the Bills came calling.

No offense taken. And my response would be the one I gave krazy. A player getting paralyzed isn't your average injury because it happens so rarely, and it totally changes your life.

 

I don't disagree, totally; but, I do have a minor semantics quibble. The Bills have attempted to address some of the major weaknesses of 07. It has not been proven that they have actually fixed the problems. Indeed, even if they have fixed some problems, it is quite probable that other issues will come to the fore.

No one can give you guarantees. I knew prior to last season that failing to address the #2 WR spot in ANY manner would come back to bite them. The same goes for not replacing Clements, although Greer stepped-up to a large extent.

 

Yep. I agree that the schedule this year is soft on paper and that is a good argument for being optimistic for 08. OTOH, while we Bills fans are hoping it is the Bills turn, the opposition is also trying to address their weaknesses and the fickle fates haven't cast their dice just yet as to which moves pan out and which tank.

That's why I like to say "time will tell."

[Sisyphean Bills]

No offense taken. And my response would be the one I gave krazy. A player getting paralyzed isn't your average injury because it happens so rarely, and it totally changes your life.

I don't disagree that having a teammate go down like that was probably a big shock. My only quibble there is that it happened during the game and did not impact the entire week leading up to the game, game preparations, planning, coaching, and the whole mood of the organization like Taylor's death impacted the Redskins (in fact, the entire NFL).

No one can give you guarantees.

...

That's why I like to say "time will tell."

That's really sums it up. There are no guarantees that adding Marcus is going to vault a pathetic defense into the top half of the NFL, etc., etc., etc. We can certainly hope so and only time will tell for sure.

[VOR]

I don't disagree that having a teammate go down like that was probably a big shock. My only quibble there is that it happened during the game and did not impact the entire week leading up to the game, game preparations, planning, coaching, and the whole mood of the organization like Taylor's death impacted the Redskins (in fact, the entire NFL).

Psychology has a huge effect on a game, regardless of what happened the week prior. Both are shocking events that affected the players, but they were limited to one game, and Everett's paralysis happened prior to the game, I wouldn't be using it as an excuse for that game alone. And I doubt the Broncos prepared during the week to win the game on a last second FG.

 

That's really sums it up. There are no guarantees that adding Marcus is going to vault a pathetic defense into the top half of the NFL, etc., etc., etc. We can certainly hope so and only time will tell for sure.

Then there is no guarantee that other teams improved themselves either. Or that the teams who were good last year won't get worse over the off-season.

[keepthefaith]

If you fire someone, you BETTER have somebody better available. You don't change just to change. If they do that AGAIN, they can move to Toronto, Los Angeles or the Moon for all I care.

 

Jauron is a good football coach who has been saddled with bad teams rebounding for terrible leadership

 

You're entitled to your opinion. Only wins matters when you're the HC. If the Bills will 7-8 games this year you can still believe he's a good coach and give him the vote of confidence if you like. If they do better than that then he's made some progress.

[Adam]

You're entitled to your opinion. Only wins matters when you're the HC. If the Bills will 7-8 games this year you can still believe he's a good coach and give him the vote of confidence if you like. If they do better than that then he's made some progress.

I have to disagree. Sure, you have to win, but you can't win consistently with a group of scrubs and a developing QB. We are still recovering from the Donahoe debacle, and that won't be fixed for a few more seasons. After Kelly retired, how many draft picks did we waste on QB's while we got soft at the line of scrimmage? How bad did the skill positions get? We are slowly building a team core, and we don't want to upset that by starting over.

 

One of the biggest reasons that people jump all over Jauron's mistakes is because the team is not yet good enough to overcome those mistakes- all NFL coaches will make a couple game management errors each game, but the ones who have the talent to overcome those mistakes are considered good coaches.

 

Jauron is a very organized coach- and you can tell how efficient that the practices he runs are by the improvement in penalty/talent ratio since he took over, as well as how guys play their assignments and have made plays that exceed their talent level. He also is a delegator, which is good- as not many NFL coaches can handle multiple hats.

 

And don't forget- improvement is NOT gauged by improving on last year's record- the teams we are playing are not the same as last year's teams. I think Miami, New York, Cleveland and Oakland are all significantly better than last year. Denver is up in the air, based on how their young defensive line plays. I will gauge it by the improvement of our young returning players- particularly Greer, Crowell and Edwards.

[krazykat]

It begins again. I'll gladly spar on this issue. I would note that most of the players you have cited as being under Jauron's watch at that time were defensive players, minus a couple. Their D was always good, even during the worst years that Jauron was there. That wasn't the problem. Their problem was on offense where they had a terrible QB situation, a lot of injuries and Marty Booker and Anthony Thomas as their top two players. Not exactly a multi-headed hydra monster for DCs to fear at night. Our situation is starting to right itself as well. Our collection of talent on D is pretty good. I don't think we have linebacker in Urlacher's league, but the three starters we have are definitely very good, and Posluzny has a chance to develop into a guy with numbers similar to Urlachers.

 

Here's the list of folks on the team now to counter the point.

 

Marcus Stroud

Aaron Schobel

Kawika Mitchell

Donte Whitner

Terrence McGee

Angelo Crowell

Lee Evans

Marshawn Lynch

Jason Peters

Derrick Dockery

 

Others arguably make the list, but last year we had many of the same problems that his Bears teams did. Instability at QB and injuries on both sides of the ball. Again, I think that Jauron is probably on his last leg, and if he can't do anything with the talent that we have now, and we can't win 9 or 10 games, I think, barring a lot of superceding causes, he will probably be gone. If he can't win with this group, he will have proven that he is nothing more than a mediocre coach, but I say that I won't pass judgment until I see what the end of the season brings. I'm not jumping up and down with fervor for the guy, but I do think that he gets a bit of a bad rap for his time in Chicago where the situation and circumstances were not exactly conducive to a winning atmosphere. And the FO in Chicago after Jauron left made a concerted effort to improve the team which helped Lovie Smith, who hasn't really been able to repeat his "great coaching performance" of 06, continue on that path.

I will defer to your original statement:

 

Jauron has never had anything other than below average to average talent.

 

So now we're coming to the point of altering that to offensive talent then, ... I see.

 

Well that changes the argument drastically then, huh.

 

Urlacher is amongst the best all-time to play the game.

 

Kreutz was a Pro Bowl Center and all but a perennial center since.

 

Azumah was a very good returner.

 

Booker was no slouch while with Chicago.

 

They had Anthony Thomas and Leon Johnson.

 

But moreover, they had Chris Villarrial in his prime when he was good, Blake Brockmeyer who may have not made the PB but was very good as well, and Rex Tucker too.

 

So there are more, I just didn't list them all, and only a fool would argue that their OL was worse than ours is today. Jim Miller certainly wasn't much different, if even worse, than what we have now at QB.

 

So I'll let the chips fall where they may, but of the list you submitted, only three players ever made a Pro Bowl: Schobel, Stroud, and Peters. Peters made one, Schobel two, and Stroud three but none in the past two seasons. Both he and Schobel have injury/age issues going forward.

 

So if we are going to be honest here, Jauron has even less proven talent to work with here, and he should have gotten more from his team than most losing seasons and one winning season beating up a bunch of losing teams than he actually got. Their OL then was better than ours is today and their D was too overall.

[Adam]

So if we are going to be honest here, Jauron has even less proven talent to work with here, and he should have gotten more from his team than most losing seasons and one winning season beating up a bunch of losing teams than he actually got. Their OL then was better than ours is today and their D was too overall.

Brian Urlacher one of the best to ever play the game? I can't see that, He's one of the best right now.

 

If I remember correctly, Thomas Jones did not go to Chicago until Lovie Smith was there, and he had little at WR. Still, I would take Jim Miller over either of our QB's......if he ever played on a team with a good offense, he could have been something

[keepthefaith]

I have to disagree. Sure, you have to win, but you can't win consistently with a group of scrubs and a developing QB. We are still recovering from the Donahoe debacle, and that won't be fixed for a few more seasons. After Kelly retired, how many draft picks did we waste on QB's while we got soft at the line of scrimmage? How bad did the skill positions get? We are slowly building a team core, and we don't want to upset that by starting over.

 

One of the biggest reasons that people jump all over Jauron's mistakes is because the team is not yet good enough to overcome those mistakes- all NFL coaches will make a couple game management errors each game, but the ones who have the talent to overcome those mistakes are considered good coaches.

 

Jauron is a very organized coach- and you can tell how efficient that the practices he runs are by the improvement in penalty/talent ratio since he took over, as well as how guys play their assignments and have made plays that exceed their talent level. He also is a delegator, which is good- as not many NFL coaches can handle multiple hats.

 

And don't forget- improvement is NOT gauged by improving on last year's record- the teams we are playing are not the same as last year's teams. I think Miami, New York, Cleveland and Oakland are all significantly better than last year. Denver is up in the air, based on how their young defensive line plays. I will gauge it by the improvement of our young returning players- particularly Greer, Crowell and Edwards.

 

 

Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. You may choose to guage the head coach based particularly on the play of 3 players if you like. I don't think many will join you in that way.

[Adam]

Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. You may choose to guage the head coach based particularly on the play of 3 players if you like. I don't think many will join you in that way.

Hey- you have what you have. Give Jauron Dallas 1993, and he would do pretty well. Give Helmet Hair Buffalo 2008, and he won't make playoffs

[krazykat]

Well since you at least answered the question and it doesn't appear krazykat will, I'll respond. The question wasn't meant to ask how individual players performed, but whether, given the expectations and then what transpired, did the team perform better, worse, or the same as you would have thought. My opinion is that given the problems on offense, from Fairchild, to no real #2 WR, to a rookie QB and RB, to the injuries on defense, to Kevin Everett's injury, the Bills overperformed. That's why I think that replacing Fairchild (who at least is saying the right things), having a real #2 prospect in Hardy, Edwards and Lynch no longer being rookies, and the additions on defense and getting injured players back, not to mention the easier schedule (you can only play the schedule you're given), that the Bills will do a better than 7-9. My guesstimate is 10-6. Again assuming a rash of injuries doesn't hit again.

Here we go with the personal taunting again VOR, eh.

 

Since you did respond, as stated, I will too. Directed at Dave McBride, I find it hilarious that he took my assertion that my response would be deeper and more comprehensive than yours as an insult given the post that I'm about to make.

 

Here was your original question:

 

Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected?

 

Here was your answer after your little hit at me removed;

 

The question wasn't meant to ask how individual players performed, but whether, given the expectations and then what transpired, did the team perform better, worse, or the same as you would have thought.

My opinion is that given the problems on offense, from Fairchild, to no real #2 WR, to a rookie QB and RB, to the injuries on defense, to Kevin Everett's injury, the Bills overperformed.

 

Yes, very deep and thorough. LOL

 

You then added the following about this year:

 

That's why I think that replacing Fairchild (who at least is saying the right things), having a real #2 prospect in Hardy, Edwards and Lynch no longer being rookies, and the additions on defense and getting injured players back, not to mention the easier schedule (you can only play the schedule you're given), that the Bills will do a better than 7-9. My guesstimate is 10-6. Again assuming a rash of injuries doesn't hit again.

 

Again, nice hedging, and after "your thoughts" are stripped away here, there's not much.

 

But, as you said, you did answer the question and I promised to respond, so here's my lengthy reply:

 

***************

 

Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected?

 

We're talking about last year so I will address last year.

 

When you say "underperformed, overperformed, or performed to expectations," I must state that my expectations were not much more last year than they are this year first of all. Second of all, I assume that also means underachieve, overachieve, or perform to par. I trust that that's fair. Otherwise I will simply discuss the team and its performance from a variety of angles and inject my thinking.

 

To begin, we must find some common ground, a common denominator if you will, whether multi-parametered or simply a single indicator, it can be debated which is where much of this controversy stems from.

 

My definition of that is how teams perform overall from a competitive angle on the grid iron. While many of you would simply sum that up as Ws and Ls, to me it means more. Ws and Ls can be misleading. We all know that teams finish the season with better or worse records than they actually are, routinely. We also all know that many times throughout a season a team can win or lose games that it didn't deserve to and visa versa. The question to me is does a team generally play such that it can win on any given Sunday without a bunch of uncommon stuff going right to help it along.

 

I am also going to evaluate the team under Edwards since under Losman doesn't matter this season.

 

To win games you need to do one and/or two things. First, you need to score and secondly you need to prevent the other team from scoring. (common sense)

 

In terms of putting points on the board last year from our offense under Edwards, which means total team TD scoring under Edwards, there was not a worse team in the league than the Bills. Edwards started 9 games and the team went 5-4 with him under center. In those 9 games the offense scored:

 

2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 3, 0 offensive TDs. That's a fact. So in five games with Edwards under center, the team's offense could not score, and the Ds we faced were not tough except for maybe the Cowboys. Another fact.

 

In spite of that, two of the five games under Edwards that we won were games in which the offense could not cross the goal line. i.e., 0 points. In another win the offense only scored 7 points, and in a fourth, only 14.

 

So, I don't think anyone would argue that it's a very fair assessment that it was clearly not the offense that propelled us to those wins.

 

Otherwise, with Edwards under center, the team averaged about 1.1 TD/game. To put this into some kind of objective and factual perspective, the team that ranked 31st in offensive scoring put up 21 passing and rushing TDs or 1.3 TDs/game and ranging all the way up to the Pats who put up over 4 TDs/game. League median was about 2.1 TDs/game. Those are facts.

 

So, last year we had the worst scoring offense in the entire league which needs no agreement. It's a fact. That stands with only Edwards under center as well as for the Bills as a whole although under JP the team scored more TDs per game.

 

Considering that the Bills had a winning record under Edwards' guidance, we can easily dismiss the offense as the reason for any win under him besides the one over the Dolphins. As to that one, how much do we want to "pat ourselves on the back" for lighting up last year's Dolphins?

 

As to three of the four losses under him, the team scored 0 offensive TDs in them, so clearly he shares a good chunk of the blame for those three losses. So what we have is a QB that did little to help the team win, unless you credit him for D and Special Teams performance which is silly, but contributed heavily to the team's four losses under him.

 

None of us can fault the team for losing to the Giants. It wasn't a great performance by the Bills on either side of the ball or STs, but the Giants won the SB and were a significantly superior team. Also the one TD that we got in the second Jets game was from Losman to Evans, otherwise we win but only 6-3 and who knows, maybe the Jets score another FG and the game complexion changes drastically.

 

So, with respect to the offense, did the team overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? They clearly overachieved because no team with an offense like that posts a winning record. If you want to argue that, feel free, but I'm out of that argument as it would be as stupid as they come. In terms of logging what they got statistically and disregarding Ws and Ls, I'd say they probably underachieved. All we heard about before the season began was how great our OL was. Lynch played well, we still had Evans and OK although far from superb TEs, but we still couldn't do much to avoid dead last in the rankings for the most part and on average to be sure.

 

IMO Edwards underachieved. With him in the game in five of nine games we didn't score a single offensive TD. In one more game only one, and in another vs. the Jets, not a good D, only two. So in 7 of 9 games we underachieved offensively. One of the remaining two games was the Fins who were terrible defensively last year as you know.

 

But he underachieved according to expectations, not according to how he had played at Stanford where there too he lit up poor defenses and got most of his stats against the weakest ones as a senior. So I don't expect any more than he's delivered then or last year. Sure, he will probably improve, but even one TD more is improvement and it's gonna take him making a real leap to become even average. So in that sense I suppose he achieved to par and played football the way he does.

 

And in my book he doesn't get points for "style" or for "having poise." He either puts up yards, numbers, and performs, or he doesn't, and he didn't.

 

Lynch probably overachieved. Lots of rookie adrenalin etc. He runs hard but has not breakaway gear. RBs like that take a beating and his injury probably had something to do with that either directly or indirectly. I think we'll see about the same going forward as he matures yet as the rookie enthusiasm wanes somewhat to counterbalance each other. It's not at all uncommon for RBs to not improve or even get worse in their second seasons.

 

Evans and the passing game underachieved, but again, only based on their talent, not necessarily the make up of the team's/offense's talent which was and will continue to be held up by Edwards. The team IMO will be more productive this year if Losman starts.

 

Did the OL over, under, or achieve to par? Well that depends upon your position. If you bought what the organization's FO told us about Dockery being far better than he was and Walker too, then they sure as hell underachieved because no good line "leads the way" for DFL offensive production. If you realized last year that Walker was nothing but hype and that Dockery, while solid, was no superstar G, coupled with an OL that had only Peters on it otherwise as anyone worthy of note, then they probably achieved to par given who was coaching this team.

 

Either way, it's the same line, same RB, and same QB this year. The WRs are the same too until further notice that one of our rookies is ready to do much more than be a backup or another Robert Parrish, Sam Aiken, Josh Reed, or Andre Johnson.

 

--------------

 

DEFENSE:

 

Can we credit the D for the five wins under Edward's starts?

 

In the Dallas game the D may have done something to help the offense, but it sure didn't stop the Cowboys from putting up almost 400 yards, after turning the ball over 6 times and still scoring 24 points.

In the Cleveland game I suppose you can give them credit, although the weather had a lot to do with shutting down the strength of the Browns offense, Anderson and their passing game. If anything, the Bills with Lynch had the offensive edge there, yet they couldn't capitalize on having that edge.

No argument can be made that the D played well in the Giants game, and the Giant O was good, but not that good.

In the Eagles game the D allowed only 17 points, but also allowed nearly 400 net yards, mostly passing. They also got the benefit of two turnovers. The D played OK but clearly with problems when you allow 400 yards to a team that never trailed.

 

In the wins, our D held the Jets to 14 points in the first game. Impressed? The Jets averaged 1.3 offensive TDs/game and we yielded two in this game. Including their FG kicker, they averaged 14.6 ppg, we allowed 14. Impressive?

Against the Ravens we held them to 14 points. Impressive? They averaged 16 ppg on the season, and some of those games were with Heap and Ogden whom they were without in that game leaving largely McGahee to carry the O. McGahee had a very good game and they had both more net yards, more 1st downs, and more 3rd-down conversions than we did all with a second string lineup. All with Ogden and Heap out of the lineup, two perennial Pro Bowlers. So yes, I suppose they did their job, but not to anymore than teams did on average against the Ravens.

Against the Jets in game two, the D held them to 3 points, a much better effort. Credit to the D, but how much? This was the second to worst scoring offense after the Bills.

How about the Skins game? Not a bad defensive game, but as we all know, the Skins were emotionally down for that game. Right! Presumably we can all agree that the tragic murder death of a close friend and teammate just days earlier influenced their team. No doubt that will be out of the realm of reason for many here. Otherwise, without Gibbs' error to end the game, we may not even win that. Either way, our O didn't score a point and the D played well but not spectacularly in allowing nearly 300 net yards and 22 1st downs, average is about 18.

Miami: The Dolphins got 17 on us in Buffalo in December. In 7 of their 14 other games teams held them to 17 or fewer and usually without the aid of weather or homefield advantage and rarely with both, including Oakland and the Jets.

 

So did the D play well in wins under Edwards? Yeah, OK I suppose although arguments could be made either way, particularly considering what those Os brought to the table and other circumstances. (Skins) Was it impressive? Hardly.

 

Otherwise, in doing what it should do, the Bills' D was terrible. We allowed the 4th most 1st-downs on the season, the most 3rd-down conversions, the 5th most plays from scrimmage, the 5th most yards-per-play too. Was this good?

 

Yet, we were ranked 18th in points allowed. How can that be? How can we be so bad in the basic aspects of the game, like near last in just about all categories, but rank 18th in scoring allowed and with a winning record under Edwards.

 

IMO the answer is easy, we beat the sorriest teams in the league then. The Jets twice, the Fins, the Ravens, and the Skins under extenuating circumstances. That pretty much explains it to me. Their combined W-L record total for five wins was 23-57.

 

So did we overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? I'd say that regarding our record, we overachieved although obviously you disagree and likely will look right past all that. Otherwise, how can a team that pretty much came close to bringing up the rear in most if not all major statistical indicators for fundamental football be said to have overachieved, particularly given the talent that they had. So in the sense of actual grid iron performance, IMO they underachieved significantly. If true, then one must look no further than the coaching on that one.

 

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General/Other:

 

Injuries:

 

Lots of people seem to think that our injuries played a huge role in our sucking. I say it ain't so.

 

The Ravens lost Ogden and Heap at some point. Can anyone name two starters that had the equivalent impact on their being out for us that losing Ogden and Heap had on the Ravens for example?

 

How many actual starters did we lose and how many Pro Bowls were gone with them?

 

Here's the list of last year's IR players:

 

1 96 Bryan, Copeland DE

2 92 Denney, Ryan DE

3 85 Everett, Kevin TE

4 50 Harrison, Kevin LB

5 62 Merz, Aaron OL

6 87 Murphy, Matt TE

7 51 Posluszny, Paul LB

8 81 Price, Peerless WR

9 80 Schouman, Derek TE

10 30 Simpson, Ko S

11 28 Thomas, Anthony RB

12 25 Thomas, Kiwaukee CB

13 96 Wallace, Al DE

14 21 Webster, Jason CB

15 65 Whittle, Jason OL

16 37 Wilson, George S

17 27 Wire, Coy LB

 

 

So essentially then we lost two starters, a second year guy that hadn't proven anything beyond the extremely ordinary and a rookie.

 

After that, over half of these players won't even be on the team this year. So if they were so pivotal and not easily expendable, then why are they no longer with us?

 

But here's the kicker, our starters didn't even perform well in the first halves of games, so it's doubtful that more depth would have done much anyway. Throw onto the pile that some of those players made it through most of the season anyway and it's a foolish argument to suggest that a bunch of expendable players on IR that have since been waived really meant that much to a team that floundered with its starters in there.

 

Most of those guys even healthy would have seen little playing time.

 

How does this impact the over, under, or par achievement argument? I don't know, how does it? It doesn't to me. Other teams with fewer but far more significant injuries clearly took it on the chin much more than we did with the losses of the likes of Price, Whittle, Kiwaukee Thomas, Kevin Harrison, Copeland Bryan, Kevin Everritt, Aaron Merz, Jason Webster, Coy Wire, etc. At least a few would have been released anyway prior to the 53-man roster cut but just got hurt in preseason. The degree to which our injuries hurt us is entirely overstated. We'll be worse off this year if we lose on three starters but no depth. That happened to many if not most or all teams last year.

 

------

 

We finished 7-9, how?

 

Well, aside from the above, we finished ranked 4th in TO ratio. Turnovers are a part of the game that is entirely unpredictable and something that you cannot plan for. You try to play hard, aggressive D, which we generally didn't do otherwise we wouldn't have ranked near DFL in D. Turnovers often manifest themselves simply due to luck and fortunate circumstances, not just for the Bills so keep your panties on, but for all teams. Yes, some are forced as a result of tenacious D play, but others, such as at least half in the Dallas game for us last year, are simply made as a result of a player on the other team just not playing well and within himself and not as a result of anything that a D does. (Romo)

 

To give you an idea of how teams with huge TO ratios perform, consider that we were tied with Jax at +9. The next best team had +5 and only 8 teams were in the positive. Jax made the playoffs and was a very good team. The three teams with better TO ratios were NE, Indy, and SD the three strongest teams in the AFC last season otherwise and three of the best teams in the NFL now.

 

So we have to ask ourselves, was our D as good as theirs? The answer is obviously no. Not even close in fact. They all played good grid iron defense, we did not.

 

So how did we log all of our takeaways then? Great D, luck, etc.? That's a question that needs to be asked, but I will suggest that if we hadn't had the 6 in the Dallas game we'd be a +3 only, and when you look at the teams/O's that we got the rest against, I would also suggest that it's not all that impressive.

 

From that angle I'd say we overachieved on the field, but with respect to our TO ratio of +9, we underachieved as a team since teams that generally log good TO ratios are typically much better defensively than we were and typically have records that reflect that difference.

 

--------

 

Non-offensive scoring:

 

Not talking about FGs (STs) here, but D, returns, blocked FGs/punts. The Bills finished slightly above average in TD scoring in this way.

 

Here too these types of scores are not predictable and often rear their heads more along the lines of luck or just arbitrary timing. But a team that finished 4th in TO ratio and which was above average in non-offensive scoring, should not have a losing record IMO. So how is it that we did?

 

Clearly something must have counterbalanced those two things going the other direction in order for that to have occurred and such that we did not post 9, 10, or even 11 wins at minimum.

 

That something was that our O and Ds both sucked. So in essence then, we were 7-9 largely due to our team's non-offensive scoring performances, which are entirely unpredictable. And in our case, largely only contributed to wins over the worst teams in the league, and even then relying on those things to win in tight games.

 

In the Dallas game we got more help in that way than we have since when, the '90s or '80s sometime with 3 D/STs TDs, and still we couldn't win. Why not? Because our O still could not move the ball, at all, and our D simply couldn't stop the Dallas offense when they didn't stop themselves. Has anyone ever given a moment's thought as to what that game would have looked like without 6 TOs by Dallas, or only one or two? How many yards would Dallas have had? 500? 600? more?

 

So from that angle we underachieved as a team regarding how that played out in Ws and Ls, but from a singular statistical perspective we clearly overachieved. What that means is that we got the benefit of a lot of "bounces," but still sucked and posted a losing record.

 

Can we anticipate that we will finish +9 again and 4th in the league in TO ratio? Who here would wager a hundred bucks on that happening? Only a fool would.

 

How about non-offensive TDs? Same there. You just have no idea what the D and STs will score and when or whether it will even make a difference. But what we can say is that if the offense rarely scores, and the D cannot stop teams from moving the ball and apart from generating those takeaways not keep scores down, then it's unlikely that the team will do more to help itself than it did last year and in fact probably will do less to help itself in that way too.

 

------

 

Over, under, or par?

 

We swept the Jets and Fins last season. Sure, they sucked. They probably won't be great this year either although both teams should be better just as the Bills should be. But we played close enough games against them last year and with Edwards in there only beat the Jets by three twice keeping in mind that it was JP to Evans for the sole TD in the 13-3 win. JP probably won't be playing this year.

 

We overachieved there since it doesn't get any better than 4-0. It's also something that we would be ill advised to count on for this season.

 

------

 

Schedule:

 

There's this notion still floating around out there that we had a difficult schedule. Well did we?

 

At the beginning of the season it certainly seemed daunting by anyone's guestimation. But when it shook out in the final analysis, we faced the 18th most difficult schedule, below average.

 

That was largely skewed by the notion that we played the Pats and their 16-0 record twice with the Jets and Fins as the only other teams to have had to do so.

 

After that, we faced teams with a combined team/game record of 100-124. Teams like Cleveland and Pittsburgh and their 10-6 records were also overrated. Teams like Cincy and Baltimore were thought to have been good before proving themselves very bad.

 

So did we over, under, or par achieve? I'd say that we got the most out of our schedule. But more importantly, consider the teams that we beat and that most of those games were close; The Jets twice, Dolphins twice, Bengals, Ravens. Those teams all sucked and if you took any one of those games individually and began bragging about a win, people would think that you're nuts. The only relatively decent team we beat was the Skins and we just don't know what impact the Sean Taylor death had on their team that day, but it's definitely no reach to suggest that the team was very down emotionally and that their hearts really weren't in the game.

 

If Donte Whitner, Jason Peters, or Lee Evans had been shot and murdered just days prior to a game, I seriously doubt that we would make a good showing at all. That was about the impact of that and not having Sean Taylor isn't like George Wilson missing a few games at the end of the season. Taylor was arguably the best at his position in a very key position at that.

 

------

 

Summary:

 

All in all IMO the team overachieved in terms of record but either achieved to par or slightly underachieved in terms of matching talent with the ability to move the ball, prevent the ball from being moved on us, and on other grid iron items. We stunk the joint up in terms of what football is all about and relied on entirely unpredictable plays that cannot be relied upon with regularity throughout a season, and certainly not occurring at opportune times such that they always result in a win with massive underperformance in the fundamentals of football otherwise.

 

Can we expect that to happen again this season? No, absolutely not. Does it mean that it will not? No, absolutely not. If it does, does it mean that it will result in wins? No, absolutely not.

 

What has to happen for us to have a winning record and for sure to make the playoffs is that this team must find its line play quickly and step it up significantly. There's no reason to suggest that that will happen on O with the OL being identical to last year's. The DL is all but the same with the addition of Stroud, but while people here are the only ones not questioning how good he will be, the rest of the league always caveats their assessments by saying "if Stroud comes back all the way" or something to that affect.

 

Poz comes back but how good will he be?

McKelvin should help, but how much? And we really don't need another returner as our return game has been at the top of the league for years.

Mitchell, we'll see. He's good, but will he make much of an impact or simply provide solid starting play? He replaces Ellison who many of you here said similar things about last year.

Meanwhile, Schobel ain't getting any younger. Kelsay is still a massively overrated LDE. Crowell is good but far from great. McCargo is still a huge question mark.

 

This team will have to move from being DFL in offensive ball movement and to near DFL in similar defensive statistical categories well up into the ranks of the average or better if this team is to post a winning record.

 

Yes, our schedule is easier this year seemingly, but many teams on it will improve. Teams like Oakland, Miami, the Jets, the Chiefs, Rams, and Niners just like the Bills can hardly get worse and most have improved on paper just like we have. We played close games against one of those teams twice last year, so none of those games are a gimme.

 

We can count on losing to the Patriots twice and it's doubtful that we will play well enough to beat the Jags or Chargers. Jags are in the Miami heat early in the season too. The Chargers are just too good for us to beat other than once again by a host of favorable circumstances that line up for us because we can't beat them on fundamental football. They're too good on either side of the ball.

 

I don't think we will overachieve in terms of our schedule again this year. So the question becomes one of can we, or perhaps rather will we, beat most of the not so good teams on our schedule this year. We didn't last year losing to Denver or the Eagles, and maybe even the Skins, while often barely edging some really bad teams otherwise.

 

Yes it's Edwards' second season, but opponents also know what to expect now too. There's no more "how is he going to play" or "how are the Bills going to use him" anymore.

 

Both Lynch and Edwards play behind a line that was clearly problematic again. Edwards will no doubt face much more pressure as the team doesn't protect him as much be design. Surely they too realize that yeah, you can see to it that your QB doesn't get sacked, but if you can't move the ball or cross the stripe, what good does that do.

 

Defensively, while many of the teams that we play suck overall, many have good offenses. Denver should have a better O, Oakland surely will, the Chiefs definitely will, the Rams are no slouches offensively and talk about injuries, they play us early in the season too where they won't have them on O likely. Both the Fins and Jets dominated us on the field in two games and both are also likely to be better too. The Cardinals have a decent offense too at times and against poor Ds.

 

Jauron and Schonert I expect will underachieve signaling the end of their time here whether it happens this year or next.

[VOR]

Here we go with the personal taunting again VOR, eh.

 

Since you did respond, as stated, I will too. Directed at Dave McBride, I find it hilarious that he took my assertion that my response would be deeper and more comprehensive than yours as an insult given the post that I'm about to make.

 

Here was your original question:

 

Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected?

 

Here was your answer after your little hit at me removed;

 

The question wasn't meant to ask how individual players performed, but whether, given the expectations and then what transpired, did the team perform better, worse, or the same as you would have thought.

My opinion is that given the problems on offense, from Fairchild, to no real #2 WR, to a rookie QB and RB, to the injuries on defense, to Kevin Everett's injury, the Bills overperformed.

 

Yes, very deep and thorough. LOL

 

You then added the following about this year:

 

That's why I think that replacing Fairchild (who at least is saying the right things), having a real #2 prospect in Hardy, Edwards and Lynch no longer being rookies, and the additions on defense and getting injured players back, not to mention the easier schedule (you can only play the schedule you're given), that the Bills will do a better than 7-9. My guesstimate is 10-6. Again assuming a rash of injuries doesn't hit again.

 

Again, nice hedging, and after "your thoughts" are stripped away here, there's not much.

 

But, as you said, you did answer the question and I promised to respond, so here's my lengthy reply:

I asked you for an answer; ANY answer. I didn't ask for a "deep" one. That was your qualification. It was a simple question.

 

And spare me the "personal taunting" whining/hypocrisy. Like I said, if we took a poll, we'd see who the real joke is around here.

***************

 

Here's a question for you: given what transpired last year, do you think the Bills underperformed, overperformed, or did about what you expected?

 

We're talking about last year so I will address last year.

 

When you say "underperformed, overperformed, or performed to expectations," I must state that my expectations were not much more last year than they are this year first of all. Second of all, I assume that also means underachieve, overachieve, or perform to par. I trust that that's fair. Otherwise I will simply discuss the team and its performance from a variety of angles and inject my thinking.

 

To begin, we must find some common ground, a common denominator if you will, whether multi-parametered or simply a single indicator, it can be debated which is where much of this controversy stems from.

 

My definition of that is how teams perform overall from a competitive angle on the grid iron. While many of you would simply sum that up as Ws and Ls, to me it means more. Ws and Ls can be misleading. We all know that teams finish the season with better or worse records than they actually are, routinely. We also all know that many times throughout a season a team can win or lose games that it didn't deserve to and visa versa. The question to me is does a team generally play such that it can win on any given Sunday without a bunch of uncommon stuff going right to help it along.

 

I am also going to evaluate the team under Edwards since under Losman doesn't matter this season.

 

To win games you need to do one and/or two things. First, you need to score and secondly you need to prevent the other team from scoring. (common sense)

 

In terms of putting points on the board last year from our offense under Edwards, which means total team TD scoring under Edwards, there was not a worse team in the league than the Bills. Edwards started 9 games and the team went 5-4 with him under center. In those 9 games the offense scored:

 

2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 3, 0 points. That's a fact. So in five games with Edwards under center, the team's offense could not score, and the Ds we faced were not tough except for maybe the Cowboys. Another fact.

 

In spite of that, two of the five games under Edwards that we won were games in which the offense could not cross the goal line. i.e., 0 points. In another win the offense only scored 7 points, and in a fourth, only 14.

 

So, I don't think anyone would argue that it's a very fair assessment that it was clearly not the offense that propelled us to those wins.

 

Otherwise, with Edwards under center, the team averaged about 1.1 TD/game. To put this into some kind of objective and factual perspective, the team that ranked 31st in offensive scoring put up 21 passing and rushing TDs or 1.3 TDs/game and ranging all the way up to the Pats who put up over 4 TDs/game. League median was about 2.1 TDs/game. Those are facts.

 

So, last year we had the worst scoring offense in the entire league which needs no agreement. It's a fact. That stands with only Edwards under center as well as for the Bills as a whole although under JP the team scored more TDs per game.

 

Considering that the Bills had a winning record under Edwards' guidance, we can easily dismiss the offense as the reason for any win under him besides the one over the Dolphins. As to that one, how much do we want to "pat ourselves on the back" for lighting up last year's Dolphins?

 

As to three of the four losses under him, the team scored 0 offensive TDs in them, so clearly he shares a good chunk of the blame for those three losses. So what we have is a QB that did little to help the team win, unless you credit him for D and Special Teams performance which is silly, but contributed heavily to the team's four losses under him.

 

None of us can fault the team for losing to the Giants. It wasn't a great performance by the Bills on either side of the ball or STs, but the Giants won the SB and were a significantly superior team. Also the one TD that we got in the second Jets game was from Losman to Evans, otherwise we win but only 6-3 and who knows, maybe the Jets score another FG and the game complexion changes drastically.

 

So, with respect to the offense, did the team overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? They clearly overachieved because no team with an offense like that posts a winning record. If you want to argue that, feel free, but I'm out of that argument as it would be as stupid as they come. In terms of logging what they got statistically and disregarding Ws and Ls, I'd say they probably underachieved. All we heard about before the season began was how great our OL was. Lynch played well, we still had Evans and OK although far from superb TEs, but we still couldn't do much to avoid dead last in the rankings for the most part and on average to be sure.

 

IMO Edwards underachieved. With him in the game in five of nine games we didn't score a single offensive TD. In one more game only one, and in another vs. the Jets, not a good D, only two. So in 7 of 9 games we underachieved offensively. One of the remaining two games was the Fins who were terrible defensively last year as you know.

 

--------------

 

DEFENSE:

 

Can we credit the D for the five wins under Losman's starts?

 

In the Dallas game the D may have done something to help the offense, but it sure didn't stop the Cowboys from putting up almost 400 yards, after turning the ball over 6 times.

In the Cleveland game I suppose you can give them credit, although the weather had a lot to do with shutting down the strength of the Browns offense, Anderson and their passing game. If anything, the Bills with Lynch had the offensive edge there, yet they couldn't capitalize on having that edge.

No argument can be made that the D played well in the Giants game, and the Giant O was good, but not that good.

In the Eagles game the D allowed only 17 points, but also allowed nearly 400 net yards, mostly passing. They also got the benefit of two turnovers. The D played OK but clearly with problems when you allow 400 yards to a team that never trailed.

 

In the wins, our D held the Jets to 14 points in the first game. Impressed? The Jets averaged 1.3 offensive TDs/game and we yielded two in this game. Including their FG kicker, they averaged 14.6 ppg, we allowed 14. Impressive?

Against the Ravens we held them to 14 points. Impressive? They averaged 16 ppg on the season, and some of those games were with Heap and Ogden whom they were without in that game leaving largely McGahee to carry the O. McGahee had a very good game and they had both more net yards, more 1st downs, and more 3rd-down conversions than we did all with a second string lineup. All with Ogden and Heap out of the lineup, two perennial Pro Bowlers. So yes, I suppose they did their job, but not to anymore than teams did on average against the Ravens.

Against the Jets in game two, the D held them to 3 points, a much better effort. Credit to the D, but how much? This was the second to worst scoring offense after the Bills.

How about the Skins game? Not a bad defensive game, but as we all know, the Skins were emotionally down for that game. Right! Presumably we can all agree that the tragic murder death of a close friend and teammate just days earlier influenced their team. No doubt that will be out of the realm of reason for many here. Otherwise, without Gibbs' error to end the game, we may not even win that. Either way, our O didn't score a point and the D played well but not spectacularly in allowing nearly 300 net yards and 22 1st downs, average is about 18.

Miami: The Dolphins got 17 on us in Buffalo in December. In 7 of their 14 other games teams held them to 17 or fewer and usually without the aid of weather or homefield advantage and rarely with both, including Oakland and the Jets.

 

So did the D play well in wins under Edwards? Yeah, OK I suppose although arguments could be made either way, particularly considering what those Os brought to the table and other circumstances. (Skins) Was it impressive? Hardly.

 

Otherwise, in doing what it should do, the Bills' D was terrible. We allowed the 4th most 1st-downs on the season, the most 3rd-down conversions, the 5th most plays from scrimmage, the 5th most yards-per-play too. Was this good?

 

Yet, we were ranked 18th in points allowed. How can that be? How can we be so bad in the basic aspects of the game, like near last in just about all categories, but rank 18th in scoring allowed and with a winning record under Edwards.

 

IMO the answer is easy, we beat the sorriest teams in the league then. The Jets twice, the Fins, the Ravens, and the Skins under extenuating circumstances. That pretty much explains it to me. Their combined W-L record total for five wins was 23-57.

 

So did we overachieve, underachieve, or achieve to par? I'd say that regarding our record, we overachieved although obviously you disagree and likely will look right past all that.

 

-----------

 

Will continue in this post. Must sleep...

Wait, minute! I said the team overachieved, you say the team overachieved, yet I'll look right past all that and...what?

 

Yes, please go ahead and get some sleep. Hopefully it will help.

[1billsfan]

Jauron is a good football coach who has been saddled with bad teams rebounding for terrible leadership

 

 

Thank you for providing the very definition of the "Dick Jauron Myth". I am amazed at how many fans like you are still buying into it. Unfortunately you are in for major heartbreak in '08. This guy lacks the guts and gile to ever be a winning head coach. This is a game that demands it's head coaches be smarter and more unpredictable than the other head coach. Dick is a dumb head coach, unchanging and someone who basically hands opposing coaches his game plans if for the simple fact that they are so predictable.