thurst44

400 yards -- kids stuff: Allen 525 yards, 5 TDs, 99 rushing yards

Wow, seriously? I'm on the other end. This is football, not a gladiatorial fight to the death. Hitting someone in the head with a helmet and kicking a player in the head could end their careers. Also, this is why I can't feel any tinge of rooting for the Browns due to their long-suffering fans (and why last week's loss stung extra-hard, even if it was just one close loss on the road). Between Hunt, Landry, and others, this group is just dirty and unlikable to the core. I'd love to see them end 4-12.

You don't see Bills going into Pittsburgh and getting much done offensively against "that defense" (ranked 11th in yds, 13th in pts) but you don't mention the possibility of their 28th ranked offense having trouble against our 3rd ranked defense? Winning in Pitt won't be easy, but they got back to 4-4 with a hard fought win against Dolphins (yes, i know) and beating Colts w/o Brissett when the only player older than I am missed a field goal at end of game. This is not the Steelers of a few years ago.

But the Browns are about as far from a competent team as they come. Not saying we can't lose to them, but we should be favored in that game. Honestly, I can get the ignoring the Bills; I just don't get the continued adoration of the Browns. They clearly are a mess. (My having said that probably ensures they will go 10-6 now.) (also sorry if I was a bit over the top yesterday wrt to the endless positivity v. negativity wars. i don't question your fandom, just was playing off one of your comments)

OK, this I mostly agree with, but we can at least enjoy the game for a few hours. There's a lot that is good about this team; the arrow is almost certainly pointed up on the team, so I'll forgive them a bit and hope it gets better (b/c I'm pretty sure no coaches are looking here to make decisions) and be happy they are racking up the wins and hopefully can go into Dallas 8-3 or 9-2 as they work out the kinks. However, there are things that concern me. Oliver is not one of them, fwiw. He's a rookie who most experts seem to be impressed by. However, there was some bizarre play calling on offense and the defense broke down containment more than a top defense should. Yes, it does seem silly to me to run to a comment board right after to dis a team after a win by 15 pts., but that's not what I was commenting about. It was the whole did-I-do-that comment that I found annoying. The OP was mostly negative, own it! It amazes me how much of this fanbase seems to get more excited about pointing out what's wrong than actually enjoying a win. I'm not saying don't point out the negative, but right after a win -- that's a choice. One he has a right to make, but if you're going to act like people are overreacting, that should warrant a response.

It wasn't framed as a list of things "needed to improve" but thoughts about the game, that was a 24-9 win (against admittedly a terrible team). I honestly did not react to the original post. Fine. I've seen it all before. I have my issues with the game. It definitely had an agenda against players he does not like, but whatever. It was the smug, sarcastic why-do-I-even-bother to write an intro (that whole what-me-negative? attitude) when he knew exactly what he was doing. It was obnoxious.

That's not the point. There's a difference between not "giving high fives" and going to a fan site and making a point to say almost everything is terrible after a win and you know it.

You said "it doesn't seem to be getting any better." That is simply not true based on the second half. They did something hopeful against run and you didn't acknowledge it because it did not fit your narrative. And the logic "only referring to those plays where we got gashed" does not make sense b/c it does not count plays where we could have got gashed but did not. You could say the pass defense is terrible based only on the plays where the DB got beat. Yes, you say some positives, but the balance definitely seems a bit ridiculous for a team that is 6-2, no matter how they got there. There are more positives than you lock on to. Also, watching the Browns. Yes, they could beat us (any given sunday and billsbrowns days are nightmares), but the Browns really don't look "better than on paper."

Nor does it make them true. One example: did you happen to notice that the defense stopped the run almost completely in the second half (AP had 7 yards in the second half). That is very hard when the other team has that level of momentum. It wasn't a perfect game against the rush, but they did seem to improve when it counted . And don't say it was b/c they were behind and they stopped running, b/c it was a close game and if it had kept working, they would have kept doing it. Was it a satisfying win? No. However, to immediately feel the need to go to a board and say how bad this team is after a hard fought win. Why? There were a lot of positives too. Ultimately, they are 6-2, have some winnable games on the horizon and there's a lot to suggest the team's arrow is on the rise. And I really don't get your jeremiad against Oliver.

Admitting something is overly negative in the opening statement does not make an overly negative commentary less overly negative.

Soooooo, those rushing yards don't count, then? Also, the plural of one game is not season in the same way the plural of anecdote is not data. Anyway, you watched the games with your interpretation, I did mine (re-watched a few times on condensed and coaches). What I saw: Dawkins blocking mostly well and often exceptionally for both run and pass. Cody Ford boom-or-bust, Feliciano a beast in run game, Spain much better in run than pass, Nsheke good enough I rarely even noticed him, Morse caught out a couple times, but some brilliant blocks). Admittedly, I'm not a coach, but there does seem to be a lot of things to be hopeful for.

We're 8th in the league in rushing with a 36-year-old featured back and our draft pick out most of the year. Let's get some perspective here.

Eagles run defense is 7th, we're 10th -- the difference is less than 2 ypg. Meanwhile, Bills are 7th in rushing offense, Eagles 14th -- that difference is 24 ypg, so how exactly is this "disadvantage bills." Or were you joking?

There is a definite snakebit quality to the Chargers. Was it 2009 or 2010 when they had the number 1 offense AND number 1 defense and missed the playoffs?

No, they didn't -- I'd let it go, but I'm sick of this particular lazy analysis. They gave her a 71% chance of winning, said that she would win by 2-3 pts nationwide (which she did), and Nate Silver wrote an essay the day before the election noting there was not enough good polling in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania to be confident in her winning. So, he was right twice, yet caught flak from both sides. It's also simply a well-written and entertaining site that deserves better than this tired insult. Sorry if this is political, even if I tried to keep it non-partisan, but it does speak to the site's overall value. I'd hope not, because that would mean they likely went 4-6 or 5-5 against a very favorable schedule. Ah, I should have looked as OP apparently addressed this with almost exactly what I was thinking (and expressed much better than I did ).

Rick Reilly, is that you? Seriously, though, you're getting a bit ridiculous with the contrarianism here. Breaking a Jim Brown record for all-purpose yardage for four years is pretty elite, I would say. To dismiss three Hall of Famers as products of a system who took advantage of a weak AFC is just silly.

Hahaha, I hear you. While I can see the possibility of losing, I just can't bring myself to worry about this Dolphins team (but hoping the actual players feel somewhat different about it).

Any team is capable of laying an egg in any given week, and I've been a Bills fan long enough to know that Sunday could fall apart. However, I think the point of most posters is that if this team cannot beat one of the worst ever teams in football who are erratically coached and might be tanking at home after a week's rest, then this team is not who we thought they were (but are still likely on the right path). In any case, if they can blow that, Rosen or Fitz doesn't make a significant difference, and since we can't control it, why worry about it?

If he hits on his throws to Jack Nicklaus' grandson, I win Lazy Announcers Reference Bingo!

A whopping 2. Karlos Williams had 5 TDs (at least) after his first five games. I'm always in awe of fans who during a 4-1 start will decide to fixate on finding something bad, especially when it's as specious an argument as judging a draft pick after five weeks. I was close watching the games the last few days, and Ford has definitely been a weak spot of the line (loving Morse, Feliciano, and Dawkins with my untrained eye), but then at this point in his career Jason Peters was still a failed tight end. It's kind of more likely that he would struggle in his first five games than succeed.

May I remind you, 12 catches...12!!! But let's press and ready that yellow jacket after a first 5 games that would pan out for a season to 34 catches and 854 yards (which would be a solid rookie season, but not world-changing, and those 11 games have not been played either)

He has 12 career catches! 12!!!!!

Ha, not to derail, but me too. I've heard good things. Pretty sure I went to final Calico's game last year. Enjoy the game. Also, i love the idea of Von Miller (if only Van were alive)

You're not wrong, in fact, just looked it up and in 1988 he was second in FG% and there's no other year I could find that he was higher than 13th. My memory would have been that he was great up to about 1989 and then sort of fell off a cliff. Honestly, I was not particularly surprised when he missed the kick in SBXXV, and thought the national blame for him felt lazy (and still does). I was livid that they did not go for one more play on the sideline, perhaps a quick pass to Thurman (who seemed he could do no wrong that day), b/c the kick was at the edge of his range and even at the time I kinda knew that. That being said, considering his place in NFL lore, why question anyone who wants to have a rosier opinion than maybe his performance deserved. Let him/us have that. Maybe the fan wearing his jersey b/c he was at the celebration in January 1991, one of the most beautiful representations of our fanbase ever. Whatever you think of the whole Bills Mafia thing, the original sentiment behind it (let's be the fans who support our players, not tear them down) was noble. I'll always have a fondness in my heart for him due to Buffalo '66, and that speech that Vincent Gallo gives after not shooting "Scott Wood" -- a speech I heard so many fans give in 1991. He's part of the lore, and if certain fans want to embrace him, to take back his rep, to remember him as better than he was, it's fine with me and it reflects well on the fanbase as a whole.

I know you mean well here, but it's a bit backhanded to call someone a "half way invested fan" for not buying a new jersey all the time. As it happens, I'm not really a jersey person, but in a fit of excitement after driving 10 hours to watch Andre Reed inducted, I decided to buy a jersey, and my choices were Manuel and Watkins. I had a well-paying full-time job then, and am working multiple part-time jobs recently. I still try to find money for Sunday ticket (a new jersey has been secondary) and in NYC between that and going to the Bills bar, I have only missed watching one game in the last 20 years (went to college in Buffalo and lived there most of the 1990s), and watched the replay of that as soon as I could -- that would be on NFL Game Pass in the Seattle airport, screaming loud enough I risked getting thrown out of the area. Tomorrow, I'm checking out the Public House, NYCBBB's new place, and I WILL wear that Watkins jersey proudly, because, to address another poster in this thread... We're not supporting the players, we're supporting the team. I don't wear the jersey to rep Watkins -- although I wish him no specific harm -- but to support the Bills, as I have been since a child in the 1980s (my family's from Buffalo) and stayed with them while I was in grade school in Manhattan and the team was going 2-14 for two years straight. Maybe some fans rocking obsolete jerseys are "half way invested" but not fair to presume that Sorry, yes I may be overreacting while sleepless in the middle of the night, but find this thread a bit obnoxious and judgmental.