Ronin

That only helps if you have the talent to correct the problems. A lot of what people are talking about here are the gaps in level of talent that are affecting the performance of the team, and moreover, which also affected it last season. Our CBs got beat several times yesterday as did our LBs. Is the issue simply pointing this out to those players, or is the issue perhaps one of those players really not being as good Gailey and the team and some here tell us they are? Somewhere there is a gap in understanding, on someone's part. Gailey and Nix can't be doing such a fantastic job yet the team has all of these holes where they have no talent. There are two worlds here, one is fantasyworld, the other is the world of objectivity. You can usually tell the people living in the former, they're typically the most emotional and least factually based. Otherwise, the fact that some credentialed person said something does not give that something anymore credence than anyone else making a similar statement or claim. Where words have meaning is where arguments are supported by evidence. Words like "vanilla," since they're so cliched, also need to be defined for purposes of arguing these points.

Very predictably the team is going to see a lot of this this season. All coaches aren't idiots and play right into the strength of their opponents. This should surprise no one that this happened. I wouldn't say that it wasn't vanilla, as it wasn't anything fancy, rather that it wasn't the typical pro set passing game. But for anyone thinking that all the teams we play are going to predicate their offenses on 7-step drops when we play them, well, let's just say that thinking that would be unwise. As such, it would behoove the Defense to begin to learn to defend it better and to do so they're going to have to get their LBs involved much more effectively than they've been. As to credibility, the whole "vanilla" thing to me is nothing but a cliched meaningless line of nonsense and overused buzzword for people that otherwise don't know what they're talking about and otherwise used for making excuses. It's no coach's duty to play "vanilla" or basic simple sets during preseason. Coaches are free to do whatever they want to do. The smart ones call plays that are going to help sharpen up their regular season offenses. Shouldn't that be obvious? The ones that work on gimmicks, or allow QBs to call whatever plays they want to and go on record as saying that they didn't have a game plan, like us last week, one seriously has to question the competencies of. Why not just play the 3rd teams from the get-go if that's all they're going to do. And then running a spread offense when they don't even have the receiving personnel, obviously, to carry it off, what is that, genius? Hardly, it's idiocy.

Yeah, I think that pretty much sums up what I said. I'm not the one getting on Mario's case, but some have. He'll be fine despite the fact that I think we overpaid for him. I also still say that having put that money towards decent coaching and management would have gone much, much further towards producing a winner.

Barnett's capable, but then that leaves the OLBs undermanned.

Wha?! What was solid about Nix's 2010 Draft? Who's left from it besides Spiller, who's highly questionable as to having been worth his draft slot? I mean have you looked at that Draft recently? Talk about ruining an argument. If Spiller can't prove to be a 1,200 yard RB this season then that Draft has no better than a D grade associated with it. If Spiller can't prove that, then it's flat out an F w/ Carrington on the cusp of being released and with Moats being a huge part of the talent deficit and only a role player. Last season's Draft also still has yet to bear out. Sheppard clearly hasn't performed all that well. This season will determine what Williams is like. Hairston is OK, but not great. Dareus was the biggest no-brainer pick for the Bills in the last ten years. I'm not going to give Nix credit for not f'ing it up royally. That's like giving the Colts credit for drafting Luck. Complete no-brainer pick. A good Draft is one where you get three or four solid starters and a couple of good depth players. In the meantime, Nix is responsible for the talent deficit at WR due to inaction, at CB for stupidly releasing Florence, and anywhere else where there's a lack of talent in his third season, plenty of time for any good GM to have corrected all of it.

And if it's more of the same, then what will your position be? They're not likely to give the starters more than a series in the final PS game although IMO they should play them until they prove some minimum level of competence and performance.

Well, I suppose that depends upon one's perspective then, doesn't it. For those coming here and using the place to serve as an opiate, they'll have one perspective. Is that what you think of most of the people posting here? I don't know, just asking. Some of us really want to discuss the team objectively while realizing that being objective may not necessarily be what we all want. One is not allowed by the other by default, yet the one that is not allowed is typically the most realistic. That first class of people are the ones that assume that Gailey was a good hire to begin with despite all of the evidence to the contrary. The second class see Gailey and his team for what it is and simply have the fortitude to point it out. So those seeking an emotional high, they will necessarily view things differently than those of us that want the truth. Yeah, they're usually good for one good emotional game up front after putting all their energy into that single game. Sometime soon after that is typically when the sizzling noise stops and the steak gets served cold. Remember the 2003 31-0 thrashing of the Pats to open the season and the 31-0 clobbering at their hands to close it? '05 similar, 3-3 start, 2-8 finish. '08 - 5-1, 2-8 Last season, 5-2, 1-8. It's not a sprint. Good coaching prevents that and has a team prepared for a full 16-game season. The Bills traditionally make a bunch of paper moves during the offseason, have to validate them, put everything into their first or first few games, and then go flat. That's what's happened in both of Gailey's seasons so far. And let's not forget, Gailey was all about Edwards despite the fact that Edwards had more than proven himself a dud. Remember in training camp two years ago when he derided those kids for making fun of Edwards? Well, as it turns out, they were right, Gailey was wrong. This will be the season that Gailey makes known to the world that he doesn't belong in a head-coaching role. Maybe down the road sometime, instead of paying a single player a hundred million dollars, the braintrust at OBD will decide to put a fraction of that money into a decent and proven head coach instead of yet another failed retread or inexperienced cheap one. If this season fails, don't blame Gailey or even Nix, despite the fact that they'll need to go, blame those that hired them and thought that it was a good idea. That's where the incompetence begins. I'm quite certain that Belichick, for the d-bag that he is personally, or any number of other coaches in the NFL, would have this team be 10-6. It ain't happenin' on Gailey's watch.

That's overthinking things. The other option is that Gailey really doesn't know what he's doing. And your question as to whether or not our players turn it on week one? Against a team that has owned us is a relevant one. They haven't turned it on offensively since what, week 6 last season, against a poor and beat-up Giants' D, and far from it this preseason, so why all of a sudden are they going to turn it on and pour on the coals against a good Jets' D to open the season, ... on the road? There is no reason. It could happen, but the current pattern suggests strongly that it will not. I know you're going to jump on my insinuation that Gailey isn't competent. But was Jauron? Obviously not. But people defended him the same way entering his third season too. Same for Williams, and in fact, particularly for Williams. Yet they were not good coaches, then, prior to, or after those seasons. The only difference was that many people, mostly Bills fans, didn't view it that way at the time. We're now watching Gailey render himself incompetent in the matter, kind of like watching another person, often one's own child, try to do something but clearly failing or not doing it properly. We are merely sitting here watching Gailey make those kinds of mistakes and errors right now, just with many people not fully realizing it yet. I think that a good coach could and would actually get a winning season from this team even if only a 9-7 season. I don't think Gailey will though.

Best summary I've seen here in a long time!

Very good points, the players are trying and preseason is for the fundamentals. The outcomes of the games do not matter, but for some reason for many people that seems to translate into nothing matters, when it does. As you said, the fundamentals matter. Having said that, and questioning your optimism as such, the fundamentals by the first teams were horrible except for the DL. The DL with only four men and no blitzing help put good pressure on Ponder the whole time generally speaking. When the Vikes succeeded it was usually due to weaknesses in the secondary and LB unit. And did you notice that Ponder made some plays on scrambles? Expect that from many of our opponents this season as they plan for a rabid pass rush by the front 4. But if the results were that with Ponder and the Vikes nominal cadre of WRs, what's it going to be like against some of the other teams? There was no exhibition of good fundamentals on offense which only managed to score once the Vikes' second team D went in. No, the scores do not matter, but individual performance against first team players does. Teams are not going to start their 2nd and 3rd teams in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters of games so that our starters can shine, so how our backups perform against them is in fact even more meaningless than the scores of these games. I see little basis for optimism. We know that Gailey isn't going to play the starters much in the 4th PS game, although he should, in the hopes that they can put something together consistently, even if only against the 2nd and 3rd teams of the Lions. So they pretty much have one half next week to get those fundamentals locked down. This isn't what Gailey in his third season should be working on in the preseason, he should be working on tweaking, not finding, the O.

Defensively the Vikes were pretty vanilla. Nothin' special going on there. Offensively I agree was not straight two wides, a TE and a RB, but that too was hardly "creative." Lots of reaching going on.

DL looked good considering that the D never blitzed. They logged two sacks in about 20 plays or so. Can't ask for more than that. Despite the heat that Mario's taking for no sacks, the DL did their job. The problem is in the LB and CBs. There is no experience at the CBs and there's only one decent LB in Barnett. That's going to be a liability all season long. Way too much pressure on the DL to perform. Who cares what players did against 2nd, 3rd, and 4th team players, they're not going to be the ones that they're lining up against in regular season, so it's not a measuring stick. The first team O had one brief drive against the Vikes' 2nd team D and was abysmal otherwise. Spiller showed nothing, no speed. Jackson was OK. The receivers are obviously going to be an issue all season long. You simply cannot take WRs like Jones, Nelson, and the rest and turn them into a group that's going to excel in a spread or in a normal pro set offense for that matter. They're backup receivers being asked to start. Blame the geniuses that put the roster together.

You've summed up the problem by asking the question right there. By the way, he's not playing any differently than he was last season. People overlook reality in favor of what they want to see.

Is that it now? It was Ponder and Gerhart, hardly two established starters. Their WRs are also hardly Welker and Andre Johnson. Ditto on the [sigh] and repetition. That's merely a list of convenient excuses, not by any measure reasons for the team's success this season. i.e., the fact that Fitzpatrick had a rib injury in no way suggests that he's going to play differently. He sure hasn't this preseason. I suppose he just doesn't care about playing well in the preseason. Do you think that's it? If so, then he's been lying to us through his teeth. Same on the rest. And by the way, did you read the Buffnews article talking about all the long plays by the Vikes? I thought that that was relevant. But wait, I forgot, Mario, Dareus, Williams, Anderson and the rest of the D really weren't trying. Is that it? If not, then why?

Sometimes the team doesn't take them seriously enough. They do serve a purpose, albeit a limited one. But allow me to ask the obvious, given how they played over the last 13 games of last season (averaging a little over two TDs/game from the offense) as well as vs. the 1st teams this season, what do you think that the chances are that they come out of the gates swinging and pouring on the coals at this point?

I'll address your entire combative post by stating that the first three games the offense averaged almost 38 points per game. In the next four games the offense averaged only 21 points per game. Over the last 9 they averaged 14.6 points per game. See any kind of trend there? I should be the one asking you, so you're going to ignore the last 13 weeks of the season? Lovely. LOL BTW, let's see if you and your sharp wit can identify what was present last season to start the season that won't be present this season?

Well then, since the offense is basically the same offense that couldn't do much of anything including get out of its own way for most of the season after the first few games, I think we already know what kind of talent we have there and there isn't much reason for it to have changed significantly from last season to this one. The only positive change on defense, or the only significant change, was Mario, and we know what kind of talent he is. Anderson is fine but hardly an enormous plus-up. After that, we lost Drayton Florence and replaced him with a rookie. I'm not sure I see that working well this season. So if all people are looking for is a talent assessment, then we already know what that is. Great DL, one good LB, one good S and then a bunch of players that pose as starters on D. The worst part about it all, Gailey is still the coach. If you ask me, that's what's going to cause this season to stall. Instead of breaking the bank for Mario, the organization should have spent some coin on a proven GM and Head Coach. The LBs were terrible tonight on the 1st unit. The DL generated pass pressure, but the back 7 was horrid. Not that the receivers were good, they stunk too. But hey, look at their pedigrees. This is just one more exercise in applying turd polish. They should have made a move for a WR in Free Agency, not having done so is going to cost us. Nelson's the most proven one there and he's a 3rd type WR, not a starting caliber WR. He's a slot guy too. It's also not like Johnson requires double coverage or anything. Every year we look and hope that this is the year, but we really know what's going to happen, the same thing. There are way too many positions featuring no talent on this team to make the playoffs. I think we'll see Young (or Thigpen, Smith, or whomever) starting at some point midway through the season. We've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that Ftizpatrick is in position to take this offense and step it up to even average, much less more than that. This season is going to be an extension of last season, nothing more. We might win another few games over the 1-8 finish, but it won't be many. Gailey obviously doesn't know what he's doing. No matter how we look at it, the 1st team O still hasn't score a TD against a 1st-team D yet. It's only been five or six drives, but still, they haven't even come close.

Having said that, trying to make any positive judgments is baseless embellishment. Defensively this wasn't the Pats, it was Ponder & Co. They were 3-13 last season. People are going to keep pushing this off into the regular season, but if the first unit cannot show some competency next week in however many plays they log, sorry, they're not going to just pull it from their tailpipe on opening day. I'm very concerned. So far this offense hasn't even proven that it can play against a first team D. So what if it's "vanilla," these games are a measure of talent v. talent. Both defenses faced were below average last season. Their offenses were about the same. I simply don't share the optimism that so many are feeling. I see a gain of Mario, a reduction in play at the corner spots, weakness at the LB unit other than for Barnett, a marginal #1 WR and a bunch of 3/4/5 type WRs after him to fill in and start at #2, and a soon to be QB on the outs and contractual albatross. That's not a recipe for improvement and net gain in performance.

Yes, but unfortunately the work that needs to be done is to get these players experience. That doesn't bode well going into the season. The pass D was hardly impressive tonight despite two sacks. Ponder? Really? LOL Keep the scotch handy.

Everyone's going to be down on Fitz by the bye week. I assure you. As to Glenn, he was going up against the best. I'll reserve opinion on him one way or the other, but consider the opponent tonight.

Absolutely, he was a concern last season too. Everyone lauded his tackles, but for a starting MLB he hardly posted average numbers much less big numbers. He's also out of position since he's more of an ILB than MLB. I've thought all along that they needed to put Barnett in the middle. But to answer your question, yes, absolutely I think that he and the other OLB spots are a huge concern. Tonight proved it as did last week and much of last season. IMO that and novice CBs are going to be the downfall of the D. Great DL, but you need some talent in the back too. Barnett's also starting to get a little long in the tooth. LOL It is amusing, ain't it.

Yes they were. Gailey said that the 1st teams would play about 20 plays. That took the D 1st team only two series. In the beginning of the 2nd Q most of the D starters were already out on that third Vikes drive. Ponder and the Vike O stayed in for that drive tho.

No. When we drafted Hardy the team insisted that he was really a 1st-round talent. No one has said that about Easely. Hardy was a high 2nd round pick, Easeley was mid-4th. It's not good that he's not playing well, but it's also not nearly as bad as Hardy was a bust.

It has everything to prove since it's playing no better than it did last season. Young and the 2nd team O not worth watching tho. G'nite!

Brooks was in, Barnett, Shep, and the entire starting line, at least, were all out. Announcer has also said the same since I posted that.