Ronin

Exactly LOL ... rant away brother! As I said though, as long as there are viewers and ticket purchasers, this will continue. There aren't nearly enough people such as myself who refuse to pay or expend their time for incompetence and a poor product overall. The NFL has become like an addiction for many, a societal addiction no different than any other addiction. Fortunately for me I'm not the addictive type. As to our team, I find myself asking after viewing games, "was that worth it?" If I went was it worth the drive, money, hassles at the gates, the uncomfortable seats that are too short for my legs, etc., if I watch it then simply was it worth the time? Was I entertained? Too often I think to myself that it was more aggravating than enjoyable due to the incompetence, so my viewing has curtailed itself. Why do I want to pay money or expend my time to be aggravated. If more people would do that then perhaps ownership would try a little harder to see to it that the team is run competently. As to the NFL though, a handful of owners dictate what the league does and where it will go despite the majority notion. Some fans take the angle that we owe the team our support in terms of time and purchase of tickets, parking, etc. But I'd rather give my time and money to say a local microbrewery that has owners that have gotten where they've gotten without the use of taxpayer funding and provide a product that people purchase because it's good. So why is a professional sports team more important than the sum total of other small businesses that could benefit even more with the infusion of my money and time. It's a rhetorical question, just sayin'. When the team starts to manage itself competently then I'll spend my money and time on it every week again, until then, the burden of proof is on them/it.

Great post! The length of the games is also becoming unbearable as are the commericals. I hardly watch much on TV anymore because of it. Even at the games it's noticeable. Goodell gets paid as much as he does to be a yes-man. Seriously, no one getting the salary and perks that he does is ever going to do anything that the owners, or at least a majority of them which will always include the Snyders, Jones, and Krafts, don't want him to do, right or wrong, moral or immoral. He's only there to be a buffer in protecting their money. The entire focus on international may be good for business as the NFL seems to be popular globally, but as you say, it's left those of us with memories of the '70s/'80s/'90s in the dust. The single biggest thing about the NFL that galls me is the way that a supposed business gets the local taxpayers to pick up the financing, and often more, for their own operating expenses. (aka stadiums) It's a business, run it like one and pay for your own expenses. I've lost interest in the NFL over recent years and have only cared about the Bills, but even there it doesn't look as if anything is going to be changing anytime soon as Pegula's ways of allowing nepotism appear to be worse than Wilson's ever were. We're told that the Sabres are on the right track, which apparently is why they're tied with five other teams that are all almost as hapless as they for second lowest in points and ahead of the last place (in points) team by only 2 points. At this point the Bills can prove to me that they're worth watching. In fifteen years we haven't seen competence on or off the field and for as unfortunate as it is after an ownership change that initially proved promising, IMO the post ownership-change result is already worse than it was prior to the change. Many don't realize it yet but we're on the cusp of another rebuild that'll take 2-3 seasons given that they plan on keeping the same brainiacs around for next season at least. Could be even longer if Ryan's allowed to stick around after next season. The NFL going the way of the NBA? Mark Cuban may have been right, but honestly, his league is the poster child for the same garbage. How, would you say? Seems to be working just fine as long as people continue to watch, wouldn't you say? I mean that's their goal, viewership. I didn't even watch the Super Bowl last year I was so fed up with everything. I'll probably watch it this year just because there is no moral controversy regarding cheating or anything surrounding either team and both teams seem to be led by good and decent players/people. The half-times are becoming a joke with paid fans lining the stage as if Elvis himself were performing over-emoting every note, not to mention that they're what now, 40 min. long. Either way, I'm curious why you think this will fail over the long term as I see it continuing to succeed, especially if the NBA is what it is today.

"One thing I know about Rex Ryan is he knows how to coach defense," Scott said. "I’m confident saying he’s one of the best defensive minds in the game today. Is that why his scoring defenses in NY were ranked 20th, 20th, 19th, and 24th from 2011 thru 2014? ... because he's one of the best defensive minds in the game today? This year's D certainly didn't reveal that. Just curious. It's also possible that a D that is so complex that only an extreme minority of players can actually make sense of it and then ebonics it down to field level may not be all that practical in todays NFL with its revolving door free agency turnstyle system where it's difficult to keep a defensive roster together for more than 2-3 seasons. Seems like the time the players will pick it up they'll have one foot out the door. As they say though, what Dunne says sounds good on paper and without much additional thought.

LOL Also, must be nice being seeded with $14M for only a few years of work, more money many times over than the average American will have by the time they retire. With that kind of seeding he ought to be able to make a whole lot more money outside of art if he's got a good business sense.

It really was, and it's so easy to prove using simple geometry, yet I've seen no one do it the way that I'm talking about. It's crystal clear. It was more than that, at least half-a-yard.

A team might be able to sustain them if they're well run and coached otherwise, but that's been far from the case so far. The offense plays like it's up by 20 when it's down by 20.

Yeah, what a brilliant idea, what "spots" would those be, on every play? I can't believe that no coaches have thought of that. Seriously?

That's been my thing all along, how do we reconcile our week 1 play with our week 2 play? There's no logical connection. Clearly we pressured Luck while we did not pressure Brady, but the thing is that everyone knows that if you want to limit the Pats in points then you must pressure Brady. Ryan knows that better than anyone, so hence the connundrum. It was rookie coaching from Ryan. How does that happen. It almost comes across as if he was relying on the fans as the 12th-man to do the brunt of the work. If the D had pressured Brady there's no question in my mind that we would have won. Our offense played well enough and would have gotten lots more help from the D, field position, etc. This raises questions about Ryan. It sure took a lot of the wind out of my sails and it seems that it took a lot out of Jim Kelly's too. Perhaps not, but you are overlooking the point, we pressured Luck, we hardly pressured Brady at all. The strategies were diametrical. Why? If anything we should have pressured Brady even more, not less. Everyone knows that the way to beat the Pats is to pressure Brady and not give him all day to complete his throws.

Not going deep is not being outcoached, it is not coaching properly.

Agree, Tyrod looked half overwhelmed out there. The line allowed both Shady and KW to have over 5 ypc. It couldn't have been too bad, particularly given the heavy fronts of the Pat D. I'm down on Roman who can't seem to understand that if you don't go deep every so often they stuff the box and life becomes twice as difficult as it already is. And a rookie G too, the G that we should have taken instead of Miller.

I'm starting to think the same. Pats' D simply isn't that good. I'm confident that we'll hold Brady & Co. to not much more than that if not less, but I'm thinking that we do much better offensively. I have a strong hunch that Karlos Williams is going to have a breakout game.

Not sure he'll shred their secondary, but I see no reason why McCoy and Williams can't put up 150 between 'em, plus whatever Taylor adds, considering that DeAngelo Williams, who's washed up, had well over 100 last week on a great ypc avg. Defense and running in this one and just the right amount of passing for balance and to break a couple of big plays. The Pats entire interior OL is rookies and inexperience. That's a recipe for disaster for them against our front-4. I'm with ya brother!

That's bold. The Pats only scored 24 points in 9 of 16 regular season games last year. Now with an improved and more experienced D, better coaching, crowd noise that may be unprecedented, you think that they're a shoe-in for 24? Sorry, I don't see that. IMO they'll struggle to hit the 20 mark this week. Brady needed all but an epic effort last week to put up 28 against the Steelers mediocre D, he's going to need more than that this week to his 24. I don't see it happening. Our enemy is going to be penalties and TOs. If we limit both we will win easily.

That is a very good point. Up until this year Pats fans have essentially been able to buy all the tix that they want and come in bus after bus after bus. This year is different however and it won't be anything close to a Pats home game, which is probably why Brady was so cavalier earlier this week, because he's expecting "the same old Ralph." Well this will be a wake-up call for him. I have to think that the Pats fans will be OK as long as, as others have said, they don't instigate anything. They're people, and Bills fans people will back them up as people, but not as a-holes. I suspect that any trouble will occur after the game after we pummel the daylights out of NE and some NE fans start ranting about us being 5-and-umpteen against them while they're on the way back to the parking lots and after mass quantities of alcohol have been consumed.

He got ripped off for years being forced to play behind lesser RBs, primarily Spiller, due to their draft statuses which was not his fault. He did everything asked of him when those times were. He led the league in All-Purpose Yards in '09. He's had over a thousand yards from scrimmage in five seasons. All this time he's had, including this season although his f/t starting career ended with the 2013 season, 1st-round draft pick RBs in front of him, both of whom he was better than, simply because they were 1st-round picks. How many yards from scrimmage and rushing yards would have have had if the team had not given priority to Lynch and Spiller in a RBBC system favoring them, despite the favoritism shown them were never as consistent or as good as Jackson on the Bills. He was better out of the backfield as a receiver too averaging more ypr than both of the others. In fact, the only thing that Jackson doesn't have is a better ypc than Spiller, but his consistency more than makes up for Spiller's one game of 8 ypc and then three of 2 or 3. Jackson was incredibly more reliable. For Jackson to have put up the numbers that he did as a backup is semi-remarkable. It's a real shame that he wasn't the #1 RB by himself for the 6 seasons of his prime. He would have cemented himself in Bills history had he been able to do that and quite possibly challenged Thurman's career numbers.

If the game goes to OT you're screwed. IMO we're going to beat the Pats this year, at home anyway. I wouldn't want to miss the end of that and the party in the lots is going to be huge.

I couldn't agree with you more! Nice brief analysis! I'm expecting Cassel to post his best season as a pro, and unless he or McCoy get injured, I expect a division win this season. This will finally be a tough division for the Pats, we'll see if they're up to it. After Brady though, IMO their talent simply isn't that good. Granted, Brady's huge, but he may not be getting any shakes from the officiating this season either. As well, if both Cassel and McCoy stay healthy, and assuming we do win the division, I'm expecting homefield advantage as either a 1st or 2nd seed, and I'd say that the odds for a trip to the SB are very very good. There's a greater basis for my beliefs on that, a more extensive analysis that I won't post.

I can see that. There apparently isn't any love anymore between the league and Brady, so he can't expect to get the calls like he has. The whining should reach new heights this season, will be interesting to watch him and Pats fans react. They've been very fortunate to have been in the shittiest division in all of football throughout Brady's tenure, but that changes this season. Even the Jets are stocked at DBs which alone might give the Pats fits. Us and the Fins are both capable of beating the Pats in both games. You simply cannot have below average talent in so many spots (RB, DB, WR) and continue to rely on a QB, that's been cheating but now can't, to propel you anywhere. It's clear that the Brady was using underinflated balls vs. the Ravens in the playoffs, I don't think they would have won that divisional round game otherwise. They were outplayed as it was and the Ravens pretty much own the Pats in the playoffs. If that happens, the excuses that come from the Boston excuse generator should be very amusing. "The Patriot Way" is on life support. I mean which players enjoy being on a team that is constantly being busted for cheating and whereby the entire known football loving world outside of NE doesn't believe that they're not cheating otherwise in some way. IMO Belicheat's methods have worn out their welcome. Four Super Bowl wins, not one that they can claim was achieved honestly.

Having been in the easiest division in the league every season since 2001 hasn't hurt and has helped them get homefield advantage throughout every season. This will be the first season where the competitiveness in the division, and the QBs, are actually formidable for a change. This of course is premised on the notion that I believe that Cassel is going to put up Flacco/Tannehill type numbers from last season. The Pats have no running game, not a great D, don't do much unless Gronk is healthy, and rely almost exclusively on a QB whose status for four games is dicey and one that's going to have to play with properly inflated balls now, which will be very interesting. Either way, IMO, and if Cassel does step up, we'll have a better running game, better D, more receiving options, and only a "worse" QB. I can see us winning the division and I can see both us and Miami splitting with the Pats and the Pats going 3-3 in the division this season. Either way, I don't possibly see us being any worse than our 9-7 last season at this point and barring injury. Brady's also not going to be getting the calls anymore from the refs it seems like. Wouldn't surprise me if they treat him as a normal joe from now on, which will be entertaining in itself. i.e., I don't think that they're going to find ways to win this season. They'll blame it on coming off a championship. I don't see any better than 11-5 this season and it wouldn't surprise me if they go 10-6 or even 9-7. They're so short on talent.

The Watkins trade netted McCoy? Seriously? That's funny, I thought that they traded Alonso for McCoy. Guess I don't know what I'm talking about.

Looks to me like someone over there is grasping at straws because his drafting and free agency sucks. Belicheat is supposed to be a defensive guru, but his average defensive ranking over the last 7 seasons is just over 20th, hardly a sign of genius. This season, for the first time during the Brady era, Belicheat and the Pats have a tough division. We'll see how "good" they actually are given their average at best D's and an aging QB that will likely get even fewer calls from the refs this season.

He's not a starter. He's backup material. All I know is that if McCoy goes down, and he's been relatively durable, that we're left with crap that netted us bottom 10 rushing performance last season. That's not good. If McCoy stays healthy and Cassel starts, I'm expecting either an 11 or 12 win season. Oh yeah, Manuel and the McCoy trade sure proved that.

LMAO

This is good, I'd rather have the team feeling like they need to earn something than coming in at say 8th or wherever we deserve to be and thinking that they've already achieved something. Their focus needs to be on "the next game" and the next game only each and every week. We need to come out strong to beat both the Pats and Indy early on. If we can do that then we're well on our way to 11-5+ and IMO a division championship.

Rex Ryan coached teams have typically sucked and had a fraction of the talent that he has this season. Stats like that are meaningless. It's kind of like saying that we're 2 and whatever against the Pats when we've sucked too. We'll have a completely different team this season.