hondo in seattle

"What? Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!... It ain't over now, 'cause when the goin' gets tough... the tough get goin'. Who's with me? Let's go! Come on!..." www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bluto%27s+speech&view=detail&mid=E91DB6FFCB3925FD7A72E91DB6FFCB3925FD7A72&FORM=VIRE

When the OL holds up even a little, they make passing TDs look easy.

Yeah, the point differential doesn't match up with our W-L record. Neither do our yardage stats. We're #1 in defense and #8 in offense. That sounds like the rankings of one of the best teams in the NFL. Yet if the season ended today, we wouldn't be in the playoffs. If we won just half of the close games we've been in, our W-L record would better align with some of these other numbers.

That's what the team said last year about the OL. Continuity is great when it refers to continuous, growing talent. I don't know enough about Dorsey to know if can grow into an OC job.

While I do think it's probable that Daboll feels some pressure from McD, I think McD places most of the blame for the offense's inconsistencies on the OL. Despite some of our struggles, the offense is still top 10 in points/game and yards/game. Those kinds of rankings usually don't get an OC fired. If Daboll had even an average OL to work with, we'd easily be top 5.

They released a second, far more pc, apology. But didn't really recant the things they said in the first.

Agreed. Josh McDaniels learned the spread from Urban Meyer. Daboll learned it from Josh McDaniels. We're running a Myers type offense that Myers understands implicitly. Still embarrassing.

I didn't know teams could restructure contracts at will. Stupid me. I get what you're saying about Beas BUT when you have a QB like Allen, you really want to make sure he has quality guys to throw to. I'd hate to lose Beasley. But I also know we need to make trade-offs. If releasing Beasley allowed us to sign a Pro Bowl guard, I'd do cartwheels in the street. Open receivers don't mean a lot to Allen when he's getting smacked to the turf.

In order to build a better OL, we may have to accept some player losses elsewhere to create the cap funds. As fans, we're not going to get everything we want. As leaders of organization, neither will Beane and McDermott.

None of the players on the 'restructure' list are obligated to restructure. You don't know what they - or their agents - will demand. This is pure speculation. Releasing Poyer and Beasley would leave huge gaps in our starting lineups. Gaps not easily filled unless you spend heavily in free agency meaning there's no net savings. Trading Edmunds for what? A draft pick? Or a FA with a contract of their own? If you are betting on a rookie to equal Edmunds' contribution - that's a long bet. If you are trading Edmunds for a FA, you're just swapping contracts so the savings isn't real.

How many cold weather games do we actually play? While I'm frustrated by our struggles running and stopping the run, it's obvious what Beane and McD have done. You only have so many draft picks and so much cap money, so you have to make some hard choices. Since the NFL is more-and-more a passing league, they built the team to succeed at passing and stopping the pass. That was their priority. Even there, the build isn't perfect. Our OL, for instance, isn't good at pass pro. But they had to have a plan. They had to take this team that was pretty mediocre in all areas and create areas of excellence. They chose to start, offensively and defensively, with the pass. So, yeah, this team wasn't built for cold weather. It was built for the modern NFL.

Obviously, Frazier wished he had made those adjustments earlier. But you gameplan for what you think the offense is going to do. Then as the first half unfolds, you start to see what the offense is actually out to do and you adjust to that. It's hardly unusual to make halftime adjustments. Good coaches and coordinators do it all the time. Maybe Arians should be fired. Obviously, his halftime adjustments failed.

It's unlikely that a 2nd and 4th round guard will transform our OL from bad to good. If this is how we draft, I hope free agency is more productive.

The problems with the OL are blindingly obvious. This offseason there won't be any misguided talk about continuity making the OL better. We need better players and there's no question both McD and Beane understand this. It'll be interesting to see what they do.

Brady has dominated the Bills. But I wanted his last memory of the Bills to be a crushing TB defeat.

I agree, Josh is fantastic. But here's the sad thing. The reason we use him as a runner is because we need the extra blocker. When Josh hands off, we have 9 guys blocking for the back. And those 9 guys cannot get the job done. So we lot Josh run with 10 blockers in front of him. If we had a better OL, Josh wouldn't have to run so much.

What I found weird and remarkable about this is that the Bills haven't been blessed with a lot of good QBs over the years but we have had many good backs: OJ, Thurman, Freddie, Cookie, Shady, Joe Cribbs, Greg Bell, McGahee, CJ, Wray Carlton, CJ (when in space)...

This is so funny. The game ended 14-10. It could have easily gone either way. And if the Bills had scored a TD at the end, the narrative would have been so much different. Instead of looking like a genius, people would have criticized BB for running so much when running only produced 1 TD when he needed more.

That seems to be Brandon's MO. He was building a passing team. He found a QB, some good wideouts, and some journeymen linemen who were typically better at pass pro then road grading. That hasn't worked out real well. They OL still isn't great at protections and sucks at creating push in short yardage situations or opening holes. I hope Beane rethinks things. Maybe its overly dramatic but I tend to like the Chiefs solution to the same problem: Get a whole new OL.

I don't think anyone was fooled by the Sabres hot start. The Bills? That's a different story. One that I still hope - despite all indications to the contrary - ends well.

This is such a cheerful topic!

Yep, it was a close game that could have gone either way. But I think the hoopla is because so many people counted the Pats out this year. Now they've won 7 in a row and defeated the new AFCE darlings in their home stadium. And they did it, oddly enough, virtually without throwing the ball. It's not just that the Pats beat the Bills. It's the whole context that makes it newsworthy. Not that I much care what the media talks about. I only care if the Bills win or lose. The rest is just noise.

Is he blaming Daboll? Or Bobby Johnson? Or the players? Or the guy who signed the players (Beane)? Or himself for not getting more physicality out of his team? It's not clear.

I tend to agree. It's hard as a fan to know how good position coaches are. But our OL was poor last year and more-or-less the same guys are even worse this year. FWIW, Johnson has coached for 26 years. Being an OL coach is the most prestigious job he's ever had.

Edmunds and Milano aren't brutal Neanderthal linebackers in the mold of old LB legends like Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, Jack Lambert, Sam Huff, Chuck Bednarick, and so on. Given the limitations of our draft and cap resources, Beane and McD have - presumably by design - built a team that's good in just two areas: passing and stopping the pass. We only use two linebackers most of the time and both those linebackers were chosen more for their coverage skills than their physicality and tackling abilities. It's a passing league so a lot of times Edmunds and Milano are the perfect guys to have out there. But against bigger blockers and bigger runners, they often underwhelm.