FightinIrishBills
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Posts posted by FightinIrishBills
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Up until a few weeks ago, I have always thought of Rian Lindell as one of the top 6-8 kickers in the NFL, but he has since missed a few normally makeable kicks, costing us a game in OT and missing a short one sunday. Not to mention he missed the first PAT of his career. Hopefully, it is just a funk he is in, but if it keeps up, he may be costing himself a spot on the roster next season. Also, although still an excellent punter, it sometimes seems like Moorman has lost a little bit too, and is no longer one of the top 2-3 punters in the league.
I actually thought he's been on the decline for the past couple years, not being nearly as reliable as he used to be. It's a shame to see him slumping like this though, it used to be great having a kicker who you knew was pretty much automatic.
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Correct. It's not like USC's band playing the Notre Dame alma mater.
You made me vomit in my mouth a little.
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Oh baby, that's great. It's a pretty tough choice which one to buy, but I'm leaning towards the side of The Great Bearded One.
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Not trying to nitpick too much, but we had Jay Riemersma until 2002, before that we had Pete Metzelaars. I know they didn't put up the numbers you see TEs putting up today (the elite ones like Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez) but I always thought those 2 guys were superb TEs who could do whatever the team asked of them.
So I would say we haven't had a decent TE in 8 or 9 years, and I would love for the Bills to find a game breaking one as well, they seem to open up so many more options for an offense. I don't know if there is one coming out of college this year that has that potential, I always have a hard time telling which ones have what it takes to succeed at the next level. Guess that's why I'm not a pro scout. Hopefully there's one out there.
If we can somehow snag Kyle Rudolph I might just do cartwheels.
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Maybe you're right... I'm not trying to be strident, I know we're all Bills fans here, I'm just frustrated with the mediocrity is all, and I fear constantly being in the 5-11 to 9-7 zone is doing more harm than good for the long term future.
Maybe it's because I was at that Jets game that I can't shake this negative attitude.
But Fitz has certainly progressed, and showed a lot to come back from his awful first half today, that's for sure. I hope he continues to win and progress, and who knows, maybe he just needed the right situation to come into his own. He's only 27, after all. Maybe you're right.
Dude, the mediocrity is what killed me (and I'll say the majority of Bills' fans) the most over these few years. That being said, I'm a big believer in team identity. I really think that teams that are able to put an identity and a philosophy together have an edge over many teams that don't. Without an identity to fall back on, it's easier to lose focus after tough games, tough losses, and the general malaise that can come over the course of a football year.
What I like about Fitz the most is that he's helping to cultivate the identity of %100 effort and heart. Is he the best QB out there? No. Might he be the best QB, all things excepted, for this particular team right now? Well, just maybe. Who knows what a rookie/free agent QB would do with this particular bunch of players; while great QBs should be expected to find a rhythm with whoever they're throwing to (take a look at Manning and Brady this season, for instance), there's no guarantee that it would happen with a different QB with this team. We don't really know if Stevie Johnson would be making those plays with a QB he doesn't have that chemistry with.
You can play the odds game (a QB taken with the #1 overall/top 5 pick seems to be a good bet to perform well, Fitz will falter at some point/isn't the answer), but in the no guarantees NFL, you have to ride the hot hand for as long as you can and give yourself the best chance to win. Fitz isn't just fighting to give this team wins; he's fighting for himself, his job, and his teammates. He's the definition of the scrappy underdog. With this particular team, I think he's going to give us the best shot. But let's see how he does against a really tough Steelers D (though not one that's ranked very high against the pass, curiously enough).
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He's kept us in every game? How bout that Jets game? How about the end of regulation in Kansas City? How about the backbreaking pick in the New England game? I'm not saying "the guy" has to be perfect, but c'mon, I think we're looking far too much into this comeback today. Don't get me wrong, I like Fitz, I like him a lot better than Trent, but he has not shown enough to be considered the future at QB.
Hey, I feel you. He's not Tom Brady/Peyton Manning elite level. But I'd like to think that a somewhat adequate defense would do wonders for Fitzpatrick. No, the defense didn't throw those picks, but perhaps Fitz doesn't need to take those kind of chances with a less than porous D?
Maybe he Derek Andersons next year or finishes this year poorly; I don't know. But it does seem to be a progression towards improvement that he can hopefully carry into a really tough game next week.
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How many times have you said that to yourself over the last decade? We all said Jauron's teams were SO much better than Mularkey's, more heart, more exciting, learning how to win, blah blah blah. Enough. We've been "3 years away" since 2001. Fitz is not the guy. I hope I'm wrong, but I really doubt it.
I always get really curious when I hear this rationale. If what Fitz has been doing isn't indicative of being "the guy", then what does "the guy" look like? Does "the guy" keep his team in every game? Does "the guy" understand his offensive personnel and (generally) make smart decisions? Does "the guy" have energy and bring excitement to the team?
As of right now, Fitzpatrick looks the part of "the guy". I'll let time prove how true that is.
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A chance at beating a good football team. Maybe even a team in our division, which may lead to a playoff game? Not just beating the crappiest teams in the NFL. How is that any better than that limp wristed #5 who could only compete in the pre-season, but not when it mattered.
Yeah, he didn't give us too much of a chance in that Baltimore beatdown.
Yes, ifs and buts keep koolaid drinkers thinking they have a good team even when they are 2-8.
Total straw-man, by the way. No one's saying we have a "good" team right now (just watch the defense play for evidence of that). Rather, we have a developing team with lots of positive signs, especially on offense. We might be 3 years away from getting back to relevance, but maybe not even that long if the team continues to show this type of resiliency and effort. And while the record doesn't indicate it, this team has 10x more heart at 2-8 than those Dick Jauron teams ever had. Hopefully that will lead to more wins in the future.
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Honestly, with the exception of the Trent games and that Jets game, I've never felt like the Bills were out of a game. Kind of like that old Lombardi quote, "We didn't lose; we just ran out of time."
They have a lot of fight and a lot of potential. Any one cursing that in favor of a speculative prospect at the #1 overall pick isn't really a fan. It takes more than Andrew Luck to teach a team how to fight back and how to win. They have a real test next week against a tough, tough Steelers team, but for the first time in many seasons, I'm not going to say the Bills have no chance against an elite team.
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They are employees of the Sabres. Howard Simon was blaming the Bills for the fans early season disgust of the hockey team.
I actually like Howard Simon and Jeremy White, but that was atrocious. It actually made me call in and tell them that no, people were disappointed with the Sabres because the Sabres were playing like a big sack of crap at the time.
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I'll repeat: since 1999 15 quarterbacks have been drafted in the top 5.
TWO of them have since played in a Super Bowl: Donovan McNabb and Eli Manning.
So I ask, just where is the correlation between drafting a top 5 quarterback and the type of championship success you're calling for?
Hey, I'm with you here. I believe that a QB alone does not make a whole team. Do you (not you specifically, but a general rhetorical question) think that the St. Louis Rams would begin the painful road back to relevancy with Sam Bradford alone? No, they have guys like Chris Long on defense who are bringing them back to respectability.
However, I'm not saying that a top-flight QB isn't essential. It's not a causative thing that only 2 of the 15 QBs taken in the top 5 have played in Super Bowls. To put it another way, aside from bombs like JaMarcus Russel et al., in many cases the teams that have drafted these QBs have failed to field a decent team around them.
My point is that balance is the key. Right now, even with a "franchise" QB, the Bills wouldn't be there yet because of the downright porous defense they're fielding. It remains to be seen how/if they balance it out.
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yea your point is pretty dumb and the fact that the lions pass rush was so improved and didnt do **** on our o line really shows we got something. bell is really coming into his own at lt maybe we need a rt but that can come in the second round qb/dt #1 thats it
I don't think the gist of his argument is that the Bills need to take an O-lineman, but rather, team-building is the most important way to work towards success. In the argument between "defense wins championships" and "the NFL is a QB's league", I think a firm middle-ground is that even the best offenses need a strong defense as a supplement. Look at the Saints. A few years ago, right after they had acquired Drew Brees, they were losing big shoot-out games because they simply didn't have the defense to protect the scoreboard. But once Gregg Williams installed a better scheme, the Saints had a strong, opportunistic D that was able to help lead their team to a championship.
It's questionable as to whether or not Fitz can be the championship-type caliber QB that a winning NFL franchise requires (although my hopes are certainly high; I love the guy). But a phenom QB like Andrew Luck isn't a franchise cure-all, either. Ask the Houston Texans how having a high-flying offense without an adequate defense is.
We need to build up, and right now I think that starts with the defense. I like Andrew Luck a lot and think he's going to be a stud, but we as fans shouldn't be pinning our franchise success on a guy who hasn't played a down of NFL football yet.
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I wouldnt say hes "On his way to becoming a premiere LT" at all, but has shown improvement. That said, we absolutely should use a top 3 pick on a tackle, for depth reasons as much as anything.
By top 3, do you mean first 3 rounds? Or the actual top 3 pick? I'm not opposed to the former, and I'd be shocked by the latter, given the dearth of elite OT talent in this year's draft. I agree with the OP, Demetrius Bell has been playing adequately enough to warrant filling other needs.
It's really interesting that for the longest time the Bills' greatest issue was at O-line. While this was a legitimate problem, I believe that not enough criticism came Trent Edwards' way for not giving his O-line a chance to adequately form a pocket (yes, Edwards was even worse than we thought). Along with his frequency of checking down, Edwards had very bad pocket awareness; if I were on the Bills OL, I would hate to be protecting for the guy simply because he would never be in the right position to let his blockers develop around him.
Honestly, I would hope the Bills focus on the D-line rather than the O-line in this year's draft. Marcell Dareus is a stud lineman and would be a significant boost for this defense. My ideal draft is Dareus, Kyle Rudolph, and Sam Acho in the first 3 rounds, but I'm going out on a limb here to say that I'm in the minority with all the Andrew Luck lathering.
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In a segment called "You paid for it" Channel 6, which is a CBS station that carries a few Bills games a year talks about the Bills getting $3 million a year from NYS in order to keep them in NYS. Two local assembly members, Jim Tedisco and George Amedore, question whether in today's economic times the state should be giving the Bills the money. Tedisco then sarcastically says the Bills should be winning more games. They talked about Toronto giving the Bills money too. About the only decent part was when they mentioned that the Bills generate $ in taxes & having the Bills keeps some people in WNY employed.
Yeah, this is exactly where Albany should start cleaning up its waste.
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I regularly read the Buffalo Rumblings blog on SB Nation, and I enjoy their insightful analysis. However, reading the comments sections of a recent article, one of the mods claimed that Fitzpatrick just doesn't have it in him to be a franchise QB.
My question is, why not? Yes, there are things he needs to work on, but he's well-respected and is a true leader on the field (just watch him try and throw blocks down field). He really seems to be thriving in Gailey's system and has great rapport with his receivers. At this point in the season he's projected to finish with about 25 TDs and 12.5 interceptions. He's able to make plays with his feet and has a good handle of reading the field.
I like it even from a marketing standpoint. The smart, tough, scrappy Fitzpatrick would be an awesome angle for the Bills, something we could really embrace as an identity, especially considering Buffalo's blue-collar populace.
This is all variable on Fitzpatrick playing at his current rate, and to be honest, it is hard to see him continue on pace to do so well with some really tough defenses coming down the stretch. However, if he does keep it up, he's earned himself at least a shot at another year.
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Bills...sigh.
Sabres...sigh.
Notre Dame...sigh.
Tepid Yankees fan but every year it's getting hard to root for them in good conscience. Most of the time when I watch baseball I'm just rooting for a good game/upset.
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Oh come off it, all you downers
Might I suggest this for the eternal optimists out there? I have to admit, it's getting better (It can't get no worse!) -
Anyone saying that Steve Johnson isn't an impact player needs to watch the games and/or get their eyes checked.
Short of taking snaps at OLB, Johnson is doing everything he can to make plays for the Bills. If we had even one or two wins under our belt at this point, questioning Stevie's impact would be ludicrous. But because this team is winless, any fool can open their mouth freely and speak without thinking, falling back on that winless record as an iron-clad crutch. All I'll say is that right now this is a bad Bills team; without Stevie, this would be a putrid Bills team.
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There seems to be a lot of "if this keeps up" in this thread. I concur with that whole heartedly, but mostly because I feel like there is a strong possibility it won't keep up. Fitz has guts, is playing extremely well right now and cares, which is always nice. But is his QB rating last year was under 70, and he's never, ever been this good before.
Maybe Gailey has done something to him or maybe Fitz has done something, but 4 games with an 0-4 record, one of which was a bad game, one which was good and two that were really good a franchise QB does not make.
While he's never performed at this level before, that doesn't mean he can't continue to do so. As many other posters have mentioned, he is still very young. When a QB is first drafted, there's always a lot of talk about how he needs to be developed over time, with the seemingly optimal situation being a rookie QB riding the pine behind an experience vet to learn the game. Fitz's learning curve might have been a little steeper considering that he was not part of a premier college football program, but at this point he really seems to understand the game.
As for the record, it's like blaming a pitcher with a 2.15 ERA for a 4-16 record. Fitz has been playing at a very high level and the only bad game was against a potential Superbowl team (*vomit*). I'll call it even after that stellar performance against the Ravens, another team considered to be a Superbowl contender. It's way too early to call Fitz a franchise QB but if he plays at this high of a level, then the guy has the starting job for at least a couple of years.
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I think Spiller for Cliff Lee would be great, Robbie Cano for McGee, too. We'd have some great October stats.
If you could swing an Evans/Jackson trade for Lincecum and Posey, I think this team would really be a contender.
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Don't say he wouldn't keep them in Buffalo, it would cost ALOT to move the team to LA since they also need a new stadium, and his value is +/- $350 Million, not Billion
But the biggest factor would be that he is a guy with an ego, and just think about what owning a small town team would do for his ego? He could probably have the towns name leagaly changed to Puffalo, then later to B-Diddy, and would be hailed as a god there. That could factor in too, instead of LA where he would just be "another celeb"
Fans would love it, they would be the best dressed team in the league with their official "Sean John" uniforms!
I for one would love to live in B-Diddy.
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I'd love to see a bidding war take place for the Bills' pick. This team is so devoid of talent, it needs way more than a QB... needs high picks for at least one if not two drafts or more.
New England does it the right way... they keep replenishing their roster year after year. The Patriots end up with multiple picks in the first 3-4 rounds. Don't they have two picks in each of the first four rounds in the 2011 draft? That team is a machine on and off the field.
Look, I'm really curious: has there EVER been a 'bidding war' for a top pick in recent history? Who would be a part of this bidding war? Like I said in my last post, there's a reason teams rarely trade out of the top 10 picks--the price is too high for another team to switch to that pick.
And for everyone interested in Ryan Mallett, today's a HUGE test for him. He has a chance to redeem himself from the end of that 'Bama game. I'm really pulling for the guy, as he's been a favorite of mine for a while. However, the collective sports public might be buzzing even louder about a talent that could be even more special than Luck and Mallett--some guy out of Auburn by the name of Newton.
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I don't really understand your logic.
If there's a rookie salary cap in place, which makes it more affordable for the team with the #1 pick, why would the "frugal" Mr. Wilson want to trade out of it? Are you assuming that the cost of the #1 pick will still be too high, even with the rookie cap? In which case, I ask: how do you have any idea what the rookie cap may or may not be structured? Do you work for the NFL or NFLPA?
If there is a rookie salary cap in place (and honestly, that's still a big if), then it really wouldn't make much sense to trade out of those top picks if the metric for price and quality of player add up where it makes fiscal and football sense to keep that pick. But if there isn't a rookie salary cap in place, or if it isn't a really affordable one for a team taking the #1 pick overall, I have to ask: who in the hell would want to trade up for that? There's a reason you don't see teams trading out of the top ten picks of the first round; there's just not much of a market among the other teams to get into that position, unless there's a player they desperately want. Usually there's no player that would justify the cost to trade up so high.
If we are the #1 pick, that would mean we are so bad that we need a player rated that highly to help the franchise anyways. While it would be nice to trade out of it if that were the case, I doubt that anyone would make the dream scenario offer you're talking about.
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What's this? Some young white nerd that raps like a Bra? Gag me and parachute his parents to Central Afghanistan.
Well that's a reasonable reaction
Fitz
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
And on the 8th day God gave us Luck, and then He rested.
:worthy: