sllib olaffub

One thing that has been apparent to me while watching games this year is how many teams look bad at times. There aren't a lot of teams in the NFL this season that stand out way beyond everyone else. Specifically, I was getting down on Buffalo after the second game and then I realized the Vikings - who were considered potentially Super Bowl caliber - looked as awful as the Bills. Also, I was thinking about recent teams that were Super Bowl winners - and the teams that threaten year in and out - and they are usually not just good, rather they are usually loaded. Take New Orleans, for instance. Their third and fourth wideouts might be capable of putting up better numbers on our team than our number one guy. These teams that expect to go to the Super Bowl aren't looking to build a competitive team. They are looking to build dominant teams, Legendary teams. There isn't a lick of that kind of mentality in the places on this team where it needs to be - and that is whoever is in charge of bringing in talent and keeping it here. Paying Kelsay 6 million a year - are you kidding me? There are quite a few teams where he wouldn't even be the second stringer - at either DE or OLB - and we're paying him that kind of money! Look at Lee Evans. He is good. But he sure as @#$^@ isn't earning his pay. We could be putting that money into better coaches, into better F.A.'s. Into retaining quality players. I'd be alot happier with this idea of building through the draft if our team's F.O. has shown any semblance of being eager - not to mention willing - to put together a dominant team. My point is: dominant teams don't even always win it all. There are a lot of really amazing, super talented teams that fall short; our Bills of the nineties are a great example. The talk we've been hearing isn't going to get us to where we need to be to be champions. And this front office knows it - they don't plan on that - they are only ever going to do as much as they need to to keep the fans coming in and to keep the organization profitable.

You can argue all kinds of opinions and sides on this, because the situations differ. This is how I see it: You have to have consistency in coaching and in coaching philosophy, so you are bringing in the type of players that will fit your system year in and out, so that you can reach a level of quality and then maintain it every year - and teams like the Steelers, the Eagles, the Colts fit this description really well - and now Green Bay and New Orleans look to, as well. If you're changing GM's and coaches every two or three years then you simply can't build anything - and that is where we are at. Have the Bills identified the real problem that has prevented them from bringing in the same level of quality players over the last decade as better teams? I suspect it is tied to ownership and that it won't be resolved until either someone like Nix stands up and tries to fix the problem or until Wilson is gone entirely. Then, you've got to look at the positions that can be replaced in F.A. and the positions that must be drafted. I think you have to draft a QB, because no one is going to get rid of a franchise Qb - it happens, but you're better off targeting a young one. LT is another position that seems to be easier to draft than to replace through FA. DE is another. So, if you're rebuilding a team, and you know where you need improvements, I think you start with the hardest positions that can't be got through F.A. and you throw your drafts at them until you have those down - in our case, you draft high end QB's and LT's until you have good enough players, and then go after DE, OLB, etc. in the draft. Meanwhile, the positions that can be found often in F.A. you address. Our staff has done neither - we haven't gone after the top QB's or LT's and we haven't got the F.A.'s that would clearly help us. I see our team as one that implies it has it's hands tied - it acts and suggests it cannot compete in the same ways as other teams; it seems to say it can only build through the draft - and I'm beginning to suspect without ownerships real commitment to this, we might never see a real champion here. I hope I'm wrong.

The Boise State QB - the knock on him is his height. I think he's only 6 foot. Otherwise he looks good. There haven't been many QB's to overcome that hurdle, though - and we had probably the best one in Flutie. What is Brees? 6' 1" I think? He'd probably rate out the best. I didn't get a chance to see Luck play and in the highlights on sportscenter there wasn't much mention of him, so I assume he had an unspectacular game. Mallett looked o.k., probably better than anything we've had in a decade. His passes did seem to have a little air under them, but they traveled 20, 30 yards pretty regularly. There's a lot of mention of Ohio State's QB - his name eludes me right now, as a guy the Bills might look at. He's tall and mobile, kind of in the mold of Vince Young, only not bringing as many accolades with him. I'd like to see more of Luck. He gets so much mention he's got to be talented. I think there will be three to five NFL capable QB's coming out this year, so it will really be a matter of our staff evaluating them properly.

A good point was made - if college QB's real goal is getting to the NFL (and I'm talking about Luck), then the chance of a lockout would probably influence his decision. Also, the threat of an impending rookie wage scale. It might depend also on whether or not the teams would have a draft in lockout years or whether those potential rookies would have to wait and then have two years worth coming out at once - something that just seems, logistically, improbable. I guess what I'm getting to is that if a guy's plan is to make it to the NFL, first and foremost, then I think he has way more motivation to come out after this year than to wait another year, and then possibly two. So, that is a good thing for Bills fans. We might Luck into a draft catered to our needs next year.

Thanks, you guys, for responding. I see some wisdom in the comments. Yes, it is only two weeks in. And yes, I do scratch my head at some real contradictory moves made by the organization. Starting Fitz over Brohm, for one, makes me wonder. I've noted on other posts that it just comes down to swallowing the losing so they can get to the winning later on. Tough medicine - that kind of thing. To me, it seems reasonable to say that in rebuild mode you lose quite a bit and work your way up to a winning franchise. But, that is very similar to saying you tank it a few years until you get the drafted players in there to make it work. The only difference is volition. On the one hand you have a staff inheriting a bad team and knowing it will take a bad season to get into position to get the good QB, and on the other hand you have a team playing it's butt off to win regardless. I've thought about it enough to know that what really bothers me is that it seems very likely, with the way Chris Brown and Gailey and Nix are talking, that this team might look bad for a few more years. They say things like, "it wont happen overnight. It's a process that will take a few years." you know what I mean. You don't hear some coaches talk that way, though - guys like Shanahan, who took over a redskins team that wasn't much better than ours, and they have superbowl aspirations. So, it boils down to Our Team won't go all in, it seems, but will try to get better - with an apparent self imposed limitation - year to year and hope we gain more good players than we manage to lose. I'm resigned to it. I've tried to take a real interest in other teams and I just can't. So, here's to hoping it does turn around in a few years.

I might have already responded earlier in the week to this one - I don't remember; but, I've thought about this team this week and have decided its really a case of BAD MEDICINE. I just don't want to take the medicine. This is what led me to that conclusion: I wondered, would I like to see the Bills win five or six games, or even say, three, and end up one win too many to pick first? Or, basically, would I prefer to see a few meaningless wins this year at the price of jeopardizing a chance to get our Franchise QB of choice next year? I'm going to remind myself of this all year. And, I believe that is why they are playing Fitz instead of Brohm. If Brohm shows he's got skill, but doesn't play great, then all of a sudden they have a real dilemma come draft day: go QB or pick up that much needed LT or OLB? That is my reason's justification for not allowing Brohm to show what he's got, and a few other young guys, too. The season is young, as well, and there might be a light at the end of it - maybe a little Luck? Or use a Mallet to pound us home some victories? It's one to Ponder.

They can laugh when they're kicking the @%&%& out of us. He wants it to stop? Make 'em. How about getting to the bottom of why this team sucks so bad. Year in, year out it's always "we've got to play better, execute better, we thought we were prepared but I guess we need to do more..." I'm not saying our defense has been the problem over the last few years, because as bad as it has been it has shown heart and has done enough to allow the team to win on a lot of occasions. If we had an offense that could score we'd of been an average team of late instead of a lousy one. But I'm getting off track. I'd really like to start hearing why this team sucks so bad from the people in the know! If Donte thinks the offense looks good during the offseason and then bang! we get slammed, then maybe he should be more vocal about the need to bring in better players. If our coaches aren't getting the support they need then someone should let it slip who is to blame for it. I think it goes back to Wilson because guys like Jim Kelly, Tasker, and previous coaches all can agree that the team stinks, and has stunk for a decade, but no one seems to say why it can't seem to get better. I just want to get some real answers here, or else it just feels like it'll continue on and on.

A question I've asked myself - and I've been mad enough this last decade to try to just look at football objectively, to pick the teams whose staff I like, the teams I feel represent football the way I'd like it to be played, the way I wish the Bills would play. But if it isn't the Bills I just can't get into football much. It's too much of a commitment of time and unless I'm emotionally attached to the outcome - as I am with Bills games - then it isn't worth it to sit through the 3 hours. There's a lot I don't like about football anymore, and it all comes down to money. I've been watching college more these past few years to try to check out players I think would fit in good with Buffalo, and those games are fun. I think if the Bills went to Canada I'd still root for them, because we could still lay some type of claim to them. If they moved to another city in the US, though, it'd be tough. There is no reason a Bills team can't work here - any suggestion otherwise is not absolutely honest. We have enough of a base to support a team. It might be more profitable elsewhere - and if that is all it comes down to then the Bills will move. But if that is all there is Wilson shouldn't get much recognition from fans at all, really. He's as close to death as any mortal could get and he sure isn't taking it with him, so why not give something back to the fans of WNY who supported his lousy, cheap team for half a century? I hope he does so. And, to go back to what I said above, its sickening because Wilson comes off - whether he is or not I don't know - as one of the less money crazed owners, but in reality, Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, and the like go nuts trying to bring a championship home. We deserve that brand of crazy here, even if it is at the end.

This is venting, but it is also how I've come to see it this year. The Buffalo Bills don't look like they're being run with the sole purpose of winning. Yet, in some ways they also don't appear to be setting themselves up for the future, entirely, either. It's troubling. On the one hand, not finding replacements for the O-line and QB can only be excused one way - that is, if Nix thought 2011 was the year to get the franchise QB and fix the line, then I can understand that. But to suggest they are doing everything in their power to win now would be a lie - and so we should be seeing the Bills prepare for next year by seeing the young guys get a chance to prove themselves. There is just no excuse to walk away from this season with Brohm on the roster unless he's proven he can play. If he isn't good enough to upgrade what we've been seeing then he's not good enough to play at all in the NFL. And if he is good, then why aren't we seeing him get a shot? We know what we have with Fitz and Edwards! And if it's the O-line, that it's just too bad to put a young QB out there behind, then what does that say about our staff? Even the audience knew how bad it was, yet they did nothing! If that isn't trying to lose, I don't know what is. The QB position is the one position in the NFL that can make a team, the one position worth losing a season over to get a star at. Once we have a star QB then there is no reason we can't find quality starters for other positions in F.A. If we had Peyton Manning, don't tell me they couldn't have traded for a legit LT and an upgrade T or C. Just imagine - three spots and our whole offense would be different, and we could be 2-0 instead of 0-2. I guess I'm just saying it's getting real hard to watch these guys anymore, because they don't appear to be playing to win now, and I don't trust the organization, and especially Wilson, enough to believe they're going to go all in when they get their franchise QB. This is the NFL. If a team isn't legitimately capable of winning each week and any given year, then we are doomed as a fanbase, because we just don't have a lot of competitive talent. Next season will be when Nix and Gailey prove what they are made of, but it's just getting really hard to keep saying that every three or four years. Anyone else think we're playing for draft position next year?

I, too, think the Bills could be decent if we had someone else at QB - and I'd like to see Brohm in there first. With the way our offense has played, we should be giving guys a chance until people begin to prove themselves. We can't get worse. Even without a pass rush our defense has played good enough the last two games to win - if our offense would put points up and keep the momentum the defense sometimes gains. So, I think Brohm, or another QB, could spark a revival - especially Brohm, because he's got a fast release, quick striking passes, and quick decision making. And, he can sling that ball all over the field - whether it's ten or twenty or thirty yards, the ball goes there and it goes there quickly. He anticipates receivers, too. How about seeing him hit a reciever in stride on a slant route for twenty five yards? That would be nice.

O.k., I just read what I wrote, and I know I'm really mad, and I know the Bills aren't the lowest spending team in the NFL. But, there is something going on that isn't spoken of on T.V. - but you can tell, even by watching guys like Tasker on his show, or Kelly when he talks - that there isn't an EXPECTATION FOR THE BILLS TO WIN! These guys who know a lot behind the scenes, know, for whatever reasons, that the Bills don't have a realistic chance. Not now, not over the last few years, and it doesn't look like it in the next few. So, why? I do think it is Ralph. He is the man who needs to lead the team in being committed, beyond any exception, to winning.

The Buffalo Bills are the laughing stock of the NFL. It is obvious. Yet, most of the people in the "know" will not come out and say what the problem is. It is obvious, though, to an intelligent fan, that Ralph is the problem. He's not only accepted this crap, but he's insisted on methods of free agent aquisition and spending constraints that do not allow for any short term dramatic improvements. He has said, if we read between the lines, that the Bills cannot be good enough to be a SuperBowl team here unless we get lucky with a SuperBowl caliber coach that doesn't demand SuperBowl caliber salary, and a roster made up of rookies and youth on their first contract, with maybe two or three high end contracts. He won't give us a winner, but he won't sell the team to an ownership with passion? The fans can call him out. The fans can gather at the stadium before games and create a union of sorts - a collective display of Ralph improve the team or sell it kind of thing - with a boycott of going in. The NFL is very concerned with public perception. They do not want a team to be percieved to be too cheap to want to compete, nor do they want that overall bad publicity. There'd be pressure on Ralph to do something - because if people talked about it then the truth would be visible - it's obvious there is something holding this team back, and if Green Bay can succeed in that market there's no reason the Bills can't. Ralph won't spend the money to make a great team, which will in turn make him money - because he doesn't have to. He threatens the fans and they come to support this garbage! He's promised us, with his deeds and policy, a guarantee of failure - he's given us a team that is designed to fail - and we keep coming back for more. We are just as much to blame as he is.

Adding a comment here is like trying to talk at a Rolling Stones concert... but, There is something disturbing about watching this team, and it is this: it seems like, and I've heard it mentioned by players, that they believe they are prepared and capable going into a game, and then bang! they look totally outmatched and incapable of competing. Not only does it look like our O-line is the worst in the league - and we knew it was terrible after last year and nothing was done to change it - YET THEY DRAFT TROUPE IN THE SECOND ROUND WHEN WILLIAMS IS ON THE FIELD MOST OF THE TIME!!!! AND SPILLER IS ON THE SIDELINE SAVE FOR A HOPELESS THIRD DOWN DUMP OFF THAT EVERYONE SEES COMING!!! - but, our QB is also perhaps the worst - and it's obvious to we the fans that he is hopeless, yet the coaching staff refuses to let someone like Brohm try to light a fire under the butts of these players. And, it is beginning to look like the recievers on this team are also the worst in the league - Tampa Bay looks like it has better recievers than us. Now, either all this is true and we should more or less scrap this offense and start over with about 70% of its personnel, or something else is wrong. Why do we look so terrible? Would another coach, like Sean Peyton or Bellicheck, or Shanahan be able to do a lot more with this? I'm beginning to think Wilson is the real cancer of this team, that he meddles and limits the freedom of the F.O. to get players - there has to be more than just shear bad luck happening here - it's been going on for too long to be otherwise. I was pretty happy when we got Nix and Gailey because I thought at the very least they'd make this team be tough and give us a fighting chance. But now it looks sickening that these two allowed this team to go into this season with the weaknesses we have. What do they think, that the fans are going to sit around for three or four years while they hope the guys they draft fill in more holes than the guys we lose? And even if that strategy did work, and we had a good team in three or four years - THREE OR FOUR YEARS! - who wants to wait that long?, but in our NFL you have to be better than good to win it all. I just don't see any hope right now of this team ever being Great, and that is what the NFL and being a fan is all about - you don't root for mediocrity or for a good team. You root for great players that do great things that we can remember and I just don't see that Ralph Wilson is even thinking about that - rather, he appears to consider this as a business, and one that is solely here to make money - and as long as he's making a profit then he's happy. WE know that is true. Come on! If the Bills were great again there'd be no shortage of fans and jersey sales nationwide and there'd be no need to sell the team or for it to go elsewhere - Ralph uses the sale of the team as leverage to make the fans continue to support a half #$^@#'d team that isn't intended to win, but is intended to be profitable. I'm sick of the Bills - we need to see some glimmer of desperation - I know it's only the second game, but this team looks pathetic and we still have hope in the form of Brohm, in the form of maybe the coach firing some of these guys who aren't doing their job - make a statement, man. What's to be afraid of? We're set to lose every game anyway - I mean, the teams we thought we'd have a chance to beat on the schedule - Miami, K.C. - for instance, look like they'd lay it on us. I'd like to see a reality check on this team.

I'm not going to watch another game with Trent Edwards as the starter. I've given enough sunday afternoons to this bozo who doesn't have any spirit or courage and who isn't a leader and who has never proven himself. So what if Gailey thinks it's the offensive lines fault - that stinks for sure, but Edwards, unlike most other QB's, doesn't do anything to help, doesn't ever make things happen on his own. I can't sit through another game of predictable dump-offs and throwing six or seven yards short of the first down marker on third and long, leading the reciever into a nasty hit, to boot. Brohm looked good in the pre-season. He's got tools that could help our team. He's got a fast, fast ball, that goes twenty yards no problem. He makes up the dumb penalty yards with ease, and give the offense a chance, and throws downfield, and has heart. There's a lot of reasons to, and no damn reason not to. Really, why the hell wasn't he thrown in there half way through this last third quarter? I know the reason - Gailey put it on the offensive line. Crap to that, man. They knew what line they had going into this season. Man am I pissed! This team doesn't look close enough to compete in another year or two if all we're depending on is drafting - especially with the history we have with draft picks. And why the hell do we look so damn outmatched in every phase of the game these last few years? What is up with this team? We need some passion - and Edwards needs to stop getting the chance to suck it out of us.

You are right with Edwards - he wins the battle in the spring because there's no pressure. As soon as he gets real pressure he folds, and folds in a bad way. I've said it before, Edwards doesn't want to be out there when the game is on the line. Now, I think Gailey saw last year and saw the preseason and will give Edwards a really short leash now. I hope, because I won't watch another full game of Edwards looking like that - there should be no hesitation if he doesn't look totally different. And the QB that should go out is Brohm - yes, Brohm. He also makes quick decisions, has a heck of an arm, laser shoots the ball into his recievers. He does has some innaccuracy issues, but not as much as Fitz. And, I believe Brohm has had experience winning big games, and is finally settled into an NFL system, and I think he'd run with the opportunity and we'd have a competitive NFL team! Man, that's what I want so bad to see. I think he'd make our offense totally different. Of course, if he doesn't, then we draft a QB high next year. But at least we'll know. We won't go into next offseason not knowing what Brohm can do - because NO ONE WILL ACCEPT THE EXCUSE NEXT YEAR THAT THEY DIDN'T KNOW HOW GOOD OUR QB'S WERE - AND THAT WE HAVE AS GOOD OF GUYS ON OUR ROSTER AS THE ONES AVAILABLE!!!! AND YET EDWARDS IS OUR STARTER? THAT'S AS GOOD AS WE HAVE? AND WE DON'T NEED TO DRAFT A QB HIGH? OR GO AFTER A FREE AGENT? THAT EXCUSE WILL NOT FLY AGAIN.

What frustrates me - and I think most of the Bills fans are like me in this - is what goes unsaid and unasked with the Bills F.O., and for a long time now. Take the Washington Redskins and the Bills after last year. Both teams were missing quite a bit - maybe Washington had a little bit more talent, but it was close - I mean, the Bills had them beat with secondary, running backs, and most of the other squads were pretty close, close enough to compare here. Now, they get Shanahan - and I don't want him, by the way, I'd rather have an up and comer than a guy who has had ten years of opportunity, someone like Payton in N.O. - and with Shanahan they put together a roster that might go into the playoffs and have as good a chance as anyone. They beat Dallas. We get Gailey - who I like - but he ends up with most of what we had, plus draft picks. The difference? Ralph Wilson. Wilson must have said, we aren't going to pay. The Bills deserve an owner who will compete. If we have an owner who isn't going to do as much as all the other owners to win, then he's merely milking the Bills fans and the Buffalo area. And that's what I get so mad about. I've been a Bills fan for about 20 years. I can't just pick another team. The Bills are my team, whether I like it or not. But our owner isn't commited to winning. Our owner doesn't ever say, I want to win at all costs - winning is my goal, and I'll do everything in my power to bring a championship here. No, instead, we hear something like, we cannot compete in Western New York. That mentality has been evident in many of his hires. I think Buddy and Gailey are doing the best they can, and would do more if they could. It would be nice to here somone come out and admit what seems so obvious, so at least the fans could unite and try to force him to make a change in policy. Am I wrong here?

I was thinking about the Miami game this week and I had an idea that I think we can watch for - AM 550 was playing in the car, and they were talking to this little guy from ESPN or maybe the NFL, and he was saying, basically, that the good thing about the game was that we didn't get blown out; Bulldog replied that basically the Bills didn't have the talent. They were also talking about why the Bills don't have a passing game from the 10-20 yard range. Again, because we don't have anyone opposite Evans. Now, I'm thinking, when we draft these recievers - like Hardy, Easley, Johnson, Parrish - what, don't these guys have the same NFL speed as the recievers on, say, Green Bay? And, when we're drafting guys like Wood and Levitre, don't they have the same strength, size, and agility as the guys on, say, the Ravens? All this talent talk - are our guys smaller, slower, weaker than the rest of the NFL? I don't know... Then it occurred to me: our defense played pretty good. Our special teams played good, too. Our offense sucked, and it did last year, too. O.k., so why does our offense suck so bad? This was my big idea - and I believe in it enough to watch for it from here out: The Dolphins looked at the Bills - and the Phins don't have a great secondary, yet they stymied us - what did they do? They game planned for Trent Edwards. They figured that if they could just pressure him, hit him hard and early, then he'd be too rattled to play. It worked. I was thinking, Gailey says he's got to simplify the offense. Well, I say our opposition knows how T. Edwards will respond - they know that if they do A then B will happen. Now, with our O-line playing like it is, there's no way we are going to be able to stop a rush if teams commit to blitzing the heck out of us. My solution: they know what Fitz can do, too, but he's nowhere near as predictable as Edwards. Edwards is locked in a unconscious way, I think - I don't think he can stop himself from freaking out and just getting rid of the ball. But, if we put Brohm in there, the opposition would have to treat our offense as a whole offense again. He certainly would be flinging it down field, whether or not it would be completed - at least he'd be doing it. Fitz would be my second choice back there, but still he'd be better than Edwards. Edwards will kill this team with his predictable reaction to pressure. Now, I hope he proves me wrong. But I'm guessing that we're going to see more of the same and he'll either be benched or he'll prove me wrong. The big light for me, though, was that the opposition isn't game planning so much for Gailey or Jauron, but for Edwards - a player. And he's our weak link.

It's all about the money. It's that simple - every decision the NFL makes is, at it's root, a money decision. That is why the "game" that so many of us have grown up loving is becoming less and less enjoyable - contract disputes, liscencing, cost of games - I read an interesting line the other day, it went something like this: "These athletes (football players) don't get nearly as worked up over a loss as the fans do. It's a passionate thing to the fans; the fans live football year round, think it, talk it, live for it - to some degree or other - and these players see it as a job (most of them). They come in to work, get their checks, go to work, play the game on sunday, win or lose they go back to their lives." It's all we have, but I think there will come a time when the fans get pushed too far and - maybe it'll be like WWF Wrestling by then - so mindless it doesn't matter, I don't know...

If it went down like that, I'd take it. Of course, ideas thrown out there like that one are laughed at and disregarded. You seldom see it in the NFL work that way. I believe it's largely because most of the G.M.'s and a good deal of the coaches are old, and old school. But, there is an influx of new young coaches, and some new young G.M.'s, as well. You see teams like Denver doing radical things. Seattle shuffled it a bit this year, and Baltimore has shown, as well as the Jets - and even the Patriots - a willingness to be creative and to think outside "the box". Buffalo hasn't been receptive to those kinds of moves. Either on account of Wilson, or the guys under him. But, I think - and a lot of us fans think, and are probably right some of the time - that you should be extreme at times to try and force change. We're not the ones who have to worry about filling seats on the down, sacrificed years, though. But, in response to that, I think the Bills would fill the stadium if we had a real plan to support, a kind of two or three year plan... in fact, if there were a time and place to be creative and extreme I'd say it's here and now! Go Bills!

I was really looking forward to the Bill's opener against Miami this year, but I didn't have high expectations going into the season, something I have had in recent years. Last year, despite all the chaos, I still found a way to be optimistic and say, "you never know, we have T.O., we could be electric, the no huddle could work with a relatively bad line, etc". This year I thought we'd have a top ten defense and a middle of the league offense, and finish a tough schedule with a record of somewhere between 5-11 to 10-6. I didn't really see us making the playoffs or going far. But, what did interest me was the change in coaching, in staff, in G.M.. I wanted to see how different we'd look. I finished the game thinking our defense will be good, and that the one common denominator in the last three years of pretty bad football was Trent Edwards. A bad O-line is another. The point of this post is to say that during the last, Jauron era, we knew what we had and I didn't like it. But what makes a coach and a G.M. is how they deal with the team, who they keep, who they replace, and how they use, or scheme, the players. So, it might be bad but we'll get to see whether or not this staff is one to get excited about by years end because we'll have had something along one of these lines: either the team will rebound and play great and we'll all be excited for next year, or the team will continue to stink and no changes will be made and we'll know this staff is no better than what we had before, or we'll continue to stink but the staff makes adjustments, we see what we have, talent wise on the roster, and we go into next year with a clear and definite list of necessary upgrades. As hard as it might be to watch the players, we do get to at least see how Gailey and Nix respond, which is interesting, to me, because he's kind of an unknown still - his legacy is being made here and now - and Nix's as well.

Stranger things have happened. The Saints have a good line - they traded that L.T. to the Skins and still have enough guys - it might be their practice squad material is good but that they need the room where they are weaker... and a guy who might deserve a chance gets to go somewhere he'll get a chance and maybe he'll turn out good. If he was on the practice squad it means they thought he would be good eventually, or that they simply didn't have the room at that position. Jason Peters, Fred Jackson - examples of why it isn't always ridiculous to go after these guys.

Trent doesn't help this line or this team. He's a quarterback that needs the line to give him a lot of time, and who knows what else he needs to succeed. There are quarterbacks who make their lines better by making opportunities, by hitting recievers who aren't standing still and absolutely open, who make the defense back off a little, who also help the run game. There are a lot of different QB's. Ours needs a lot to be successful and falls to peices easily. Enough for me to know we need to find a new QB, and we should start next week.

If I had season tickets this year I'd be furious about the idea of letting Trent have a year of worry free football. NO thanks. I won't watch this team all year if Trent doesn't dramatically turn it around - because I can see his ineptitude, his fear is tangible, totally obvious to his teammates, I'd guess. You can see it all over Trent's body language - the guy is no leader and he's no good. A show like yesterday's - I won't watch that all season long. Frankly, I don't think the F.O. will stick with that kind of play for more than a few more games - and if I were Gailey I'd have a hard time giving him one more full game. But, we do already have a quarterback on the team who has a fast release, who has great ball velocity, who makes quick decisions - Brohm. He's got NFL talent, and we don't know as of right now if when he gets his chance he'll be great, leading us to victory, or if he'll be like the others on our roster. He's an unknown, but he's still got the X factor here, and that is he hasn't been given a shot. I say put him out there.

I'm not being biased here - I was shocked when Gailey called Edwards his starter. Some of it is just that I thought Brohm looked more promising. But, most of it was that Edwards caved in last year and showed everyone what type of player he is. And, he showed it to Gailey today. You blitz him, put pressure on him and he folds. He is not a Leader of Men. He is cowardly. You can see it so much in his body language. He acts defeated. He has no fire, no toughness. Some of it is just unconscious body communication - but I swear, the guy isn't what an NFL QB should be like. Men aren't going to follow T. Edwards. They are going to stop playing hard if Gailey doesn't see this and rectify it soon. No excuses, and please let's not waste the season with giving him a chance. It's obvious to me - I just can't stand the Bills with Edwards. Even if we were to win the next three games with him as our QB, I'd still think, he's apt to fall apart - and sooner or later he will. Brian Bohm!

If I'm Gailey, as much as I hate to lose - and this goes for Nix, too - this game was what I'd call Bad Medicine. We can say the players looked this way and that during practice and preseason, but playing for real is obviously a much different animal. That being said, my own view on our strengths and weaknesses has only changed a little. What we need to upgrade after this year - and this game really made me realize how outmatched we are in some critical areas, and what a good NFL team should look like: We need a new QB. That is my first item to change, and it is as much because of the way he looks, his body language, as it is his play. He looks defeated, he looks scared, he doesn't look like he wants to have the ball in his hands with a minute left and a chance to go down the field to score. He is beat mentally, looks to check down automatically, and simply doesn't have the mental toughness to be a Leader. I say, try Brian Brohm now. We need to know what we have there before next year. We need upgrades on the line. Obviously at tackle, but I suspect maybe center as well. Our guards didn't look very good either. I'm just hoping that Wood and Levitre are good enough; at that, we need to upgrade the O-line. If I'm Nix, I don't know if I go LT first or QB. Probably QB, LT, and after that load up on linebackers and O-linemen. We need a true number one reciever. If we had a guy like Brandon Marshall, or Fitzgerald, or C.Johnson then the rest of our recieving corps would be great in their secondary roles. Evans as the 2 on the outside, with everyone else in there on multiple WR sets. Of course, Nelson is out as TE, but it looks like until our O-line improves, we wont be using a TE for a reciever role. The defense looked pretty good, in all. I don't like the play of our safeties that much, and I don't like the play of half our linebackers. I think, though, that if we picked up a stud OLB then we could get by with everyone else - the defense wasn't the problem today; They, as has been the frustrating case for over a year now, gave the team a chance to win right up to the end. So, if I'm looking for changes it would go as follows, in this order: QB, LT, OLB, WR, C, MLB. Between F.A. and the draft, we should be able to patch up the leaks and create a good, competitive team next year. If the QB's a rookie, we're probably looking at year 3 of Gailey and Nix's regime for a S.B. shot. That's some Bad Medicine.