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Six consecutive years where you just plain suck on offense


LGB

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Another "see no evil, hear no evil" fan... Just because you WANT them to be good doesn't mean they will

 

I question whether or not you actually WANT them to be good.

 

I'm not expecting them to be awesome, but it's called having a little faith. Ask the '08 Dolphins, '08 Falcons, '04 Chargers. We saw it in our city with the '06 Sabres. It's not this ridiculously crazy wild !@#$ing idea that the Bills could go 10-6 - stop acting like it is.

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I question whether or not you actually WANT them to be good.

 

I'm not expecting them to be awesome, but it's called having a little faith. Ask the '08 Dolphins, '08 Falcons, '04 Chargers. We saw it in our city with the '06 Sabres. It's not this ridiculously crazy wild !@#$ing idea that the Bills could go 10-6 - stop acting like it is.

Ignore Buster. Everyone else does.

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You get it. I'll expand that thought a bit further.

 

The NFL is about making money. While there are a few owners that have a passion to compete and win championships, the other 80% don't care about that.... they just want to make buck... and that includes Ralph Wilson.

 

Wilson promoted Russ Brandon for one reason and one reason only... to make him some cash... quickly. Russ' area of expertise is marketing, and he knows that this game is marketed to the 14-35 year old male demographic. They are fresh, don't have the football intelligence of someone that has watched the game for 30-40 years, and can be "snowed". The other demographic was the Toronto or Canadian fan base that they wanted to expand. The 20K or so fans from the Toronto area that regularly attend the games was not Russ' target... he already had them in his pocket. So, Russ had fresh meat to work with as well in that demographic...

 

So, Russ' job is to create "top of mind awareness" of the Bills. Bringing in his new circus act, TO, does that. TO brought the Bills several national TV games this coming season. If the Bills don't bring in TO, they are lucky to get one. The demographic that I alluded to doesn't get jacked by watching the Bills... they are boring (just like their coach). But add TO and that gets everyone's attention (both demographics), because "I've heard of him" and he is "showtime"... at least in his prime.

 

Russ knew he had to sell tix. He couldn't build a winner because 1) he doesn't know how to (he's a marketing guy), 2) building a winner takes time anyway... time that he doesn't have, and 3) He has a loser for a HC and he couldn't bring a team of prow bowlers to the SB. So, the next best thing was to snow those two new fresh demographics.... and increase ticket sales. So far it has worked.

 

 

 

B I N G O ! ! !

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Well the reason the Bills offense has not been all that good since 2003 has been because of the QB situation. In 2003 we had Bledsoe turn in a really great first half of the season. Since than Bledsoe has gotten old, JP never really developed the decision making and option reading ability that he needed to match his physical skills, and Trent who looked like the QB we envisioned last year got injured and never really shook it off.

 

So this year we added TO and reshaped our o-line because of the Peters situation and Trent hopefully comes back at full health. Who knows if it will work out but it falls on Trent and his line to protect him and open up lanes for our good running backs. I hope Trent works out but as much as I like what he brings in the form of his intelligence and accuracy but his arm strength and injury history do concern me.

 

Another reason for our ineffective offense is because of Mike Williams and the o-line. Other than Williams the team never spent high picks on the o-line. Peters emerged but he handled getting his raise wrong and the Bills did not want to extend a guy who didn't want to be here and turned in a sub par 2008 year in pass protection. But before Peters left the Bills decided to bring in free agents around Peters which was ineffective. Langston Walker was a good fit on the right side but guys like Dockery, Fowler, and Whittle were busts.

 

So I hope Wood, Levitre, and Butler at his new position emerge as good starters and we build a good o-line around those guys. It was refreshing to see that the Bills were spending high picks on the o-line. However I did think they should have trade up for Oher in the draft but hopefully they made the right call on that one ( although if a guy like Ozzie Newsome trades up for him it really makes you think that Oher may be really good epically at the value they got for him. )

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Well the reason the Bills offense has not been all that good since 2003 has been because of the QB situation. In 2003 we had Bledsoe turn in a really great first half of the season. Since than Bledsoe has gotten old, JP never really developed the decision making and option reading ability that he needed to match his physical skills, and Trent who looked like the QB we envisioned last year got injured and never really shook it off.

 

So this year we added TO and reshaped our o-line because of the Peters situation and Trent hopefully comes back at full health. Who knows if it will work out but it falls on Trent and his line to protect him and open up lanes for our good running backs. I hope Trent works out but as much as I like what he brings in the form of his intelligence and accuracy but his arm strength and injury history do concern me.

 

Another reason for our ineffective offense is because of Mike Williams and the o-line. Other than Williams the team never spent high picks on the o-line. Peters emerged but he handled getting his raise wrong and the Bills did not want to extend a guy who didn't want to be here and turned in a sub par 2008 year in pass protection. But before Peters left the Bills decided to bring in free agents around Peters which was ineffective. Langston Walker was a good fit on the right side but guys like Dockery, Fowler, and Whittle were busts.

 

So I hope Wood, Levitre, and Butler at his new position emerge as good starters and we build a good o-line around those guys. It was refreshing to see that the Bills were spending high picks on the o-line. However I did think they should have trade up for Oher in the draft but hopefully they made the right call on that one ( although if a guy like Ozzie Newsome trades up for him it really makes you think that Oher may be really good epically at the value they got for him. )

You can blame the QB all you want, but they are only as good as the O line allows. If the QB is under duress in less then 3 seconds he cannot get the ball out in time. When given time Bledsoe would tear opponents apart and the Bills would win. I can recall Mularkey stressing the point that Bledsoe needed to get rid of the ball in under 4 seconds, but then the OC didn't have the proper pass patterns set up for that to succeed.

 

If the offensive line fails the entire offense fails,the best teams have the best offensive lines. That is one area the Patriots are working on to keep Brady up this season. The Pats line failed them in their last SB and failed them last year as Brady was knocked out for the season. They Pats had a veteran O line, now you think the Bills with a bunch of new players will do better then last season ??

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You can blame the QB all you want, but they are only as good as the O line allows. If the QB is under duress in less then 3 seconds he cannot get the ball out in time. When given time Bledsoe would tear opponents apart and the Bills would win. I can recall Mularkey stressing the point that Bledsoe needed to get rid of the ball in under 4 seconds, but then the OC didn't have the proper pass patterns set up for that to succeed.

 

If the offensive line fails the entire offense fails,the best teams have the best offensive lines. That is one area the Patriots are working on to keep Brady up this season. The Pats line failed them in their last SB and failed them last year as Brady was knocked out for the season. They Pats had a veteran O line, now you think the Bills with a bunch of new players will do better then last season ??

With the shuffling on the OL last year thanks to the Peters holdout, the Bills did the right thing this year in an effort to stabilize the OL assignments by the start of the regular season. But with a total revamp of the OL, it will be a lot to ask for the offense to gel right away (maybe even tougher with green talent and the Bill's 2009 schedule). They have addressed most of the obvious positions of need and now the question becomes: will this staff be able to coach their way into keeping their jobs?

 

To listen to Jim Kelly (like presumably he has spoken to RW), he stated this week that Mr. Wilson will not settle for anything less than a playoff birth this year. The Bills have not sunk to the level of the Lions yet because of their defense and special teams, but the offense has to step up and move the chains. So far, this coaching staff has not been able to improve the offense to any better than 25th place.

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With the shuffling on the OL last year thanks to the Peters holdout, the Bills did the right thing this year in an effort to stabilize the OL assignments by the start of the regular season. But with a total revamp of the OL, it will be a lot to ask for the offense to gel right away (maybe even tougher with green talent and the Bill's 2009 schedule). They have addressed most of the obvious positions of need and now the question becomes: will this staff be able to coach their way into keeping their jobs?

 

We've seen with teams like the Giants' OL how important it is to keep talented players together for as long as possible. In the span of 3+ seasons, Buffalo's thrown more OL groups out there it's little wonder they're not good. But I agree here, it's expecting an awful lot of two rookies, an untested former backup and 2 others who are switching positions to excel.

 

In many instances, Buffalo addresses problems with patchwork solutions. They had a below average OL in 06 even with Peters. The response was to buy an OL with Dockery and Walker. This didn't work long term. Now they're going with rookies and cheap options like Hangartner and Butler.

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Buster is right, and our players know it. We were demoralized by our inept coaching and Losman last year. They clearly gave up during the last half of the season.

 

lol what? I'm pretty the guys in that locker room believe they can compete with anyone. Whether or that's true remains to be seen.

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We've seen with teams like the Giants' OL how important it is to keep talented players together for as long as possible. In the span of 3+ seasons, Buffalo's thrown more OL groups out there it's little wonder they're not good. But I agree here, it's expecting an awful lot of two rookies, an untested former backup and 2 others who are switching positions to excel.

 

In many instances, Buffalo addresses problems with patchwork solutions. They had a below average OL in 06 even with Peters. The response was to buy an OL with Dockery and Walker. This didn't work long term. Now they're going with rookies and cheap options like Hangartner and Butler.

So let's fast forward to the end of the year and assume that there is some OL improvement, the core group of players look to be in place, but the Bills miss the playoffs for the 10th year straight year and finish at 7-9 for the 4th straight year.

 

Do you part ways with DJ and go through another transitional period with a mediocre coach or does OBD go after a proven performer (e.g. Bill Cowher)?

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You can blame the QB all you want, but they are only as good as the O line allows. If the QB is under duress in less then 3 seconds he cannot get the ball out in time. When given time Bledsoe would tear opponents apart and the Bills would win. I can recall Mularkey stressing the point that Bledsoe needed to get rid of the ball in under 4 seconds, but then the OC didn't have the proper pass patterns set up for that to succeed.

 

If the offensive line fails the entire offense fails,the best teams have the best offensive lines. That is one area the Patriots are working on to keep Brady up this season. The Pats line failed them in their last SB and failed them last year as Brady was knocked out for the season. They Pats had a veteran O line, now you think the Bills with a bunch of new players will do better then last season ??

 

Well I did point to the o-line in the second part of the post as another big problem. It just sucks that Peters had to have that holdout last year. It also sucks that most of the big money we put into it (Dockery and Co)did not pay off. Now we made right moves on Butler and Walker as well as developing Peters.

 

But we at least tried this year putting day one picks into the line. But even with a great o-line JP might still have not been a promise land type of QB. Trent might not be that either but the jury is at least still out on him. QB is essential to an offense the Vikings are proof of that. You need a QB and a QB could make an o-line look good. Kurt Warner showed this year that if you have a good QB he could make a mediocre o-line look good. If you have a quick release and make good reads you can make up for some of the mistakes your o-line makes.

 

Another issue that has made this offense so anemic is the lack of a number 2 option at wide receiver since Moulds lost it. With TO we have at least addressed that for the time being. ANOTHER issue is that there hasn't been a real tightend in God knows how long. So when a team has issues with their QB, o-line, tightend, and number two threat at WR how good could it be? Besides Running back and Lee Evans what has been a consistent strength of the offense.

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T Owens

D Rhodes

3 New O. Linemen

Shawn Nelson Over R.Royal

 

 

 

........... :lol:

Lets see, a third string running back, a third tier FA, three rookies and the biggest jerk in football. Brilliant I tell you, brilliant!

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Good responses guys (mostly).. I too would like to see an improvement but even if we do improve our 3 AFC opponents improved even more. Add to the fact they all having better coaching at all levels if you think experience counts. Ralph Wilson is the jerk, he won't spend money that he has made on football for football and he won't even sell the team.

 

It is so strange though that ticket sales are through the roof. Pre-Kelly years we couldn't get 35K for the games because we sucked. Now we have fallen to that level and people still cheer on. I expect 3-13 and hope I'm wrong.

 

But again in 2010 we will have a "great draft" and will have signed FA's that are not apart of any starting lineup but we see "stars in the making", and marketing will find a new angle to sell the masses on. The angle will be a new head coach with new assistances who want to build a "tough" team. This coach will be a loser or a previous assistant with no experience. and people will be satisfied. and so it goes.

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