hondo in seattle

Gil Brandt has had an excellent career as a personnel guy. I feel comfortable guessing that he knows more about football and football players than anyone on this board. And yet... some of his position rankings are, let's say, idiosyncratic.

Another dumb Carucci article. "Offensive line once ranked as one of the stronger areas for the Buffalo Bills. Now, it is looking, shall we say, a bit wobbly." According to Vic, the OL is suddenly a big concern because... Richie is still the best player. Glenn has an ankle injury Mills is still starting. Miller is trying to fend off Ducasse. Wood is recovering from a broken leg. Where's the problem? Richie still plays at a high level. Glenn played through injuries last year and missed some games. We have every reason to hope he'll be more productive this year. Mills isn't good but he's no worse than last year and maybe (some say) a little better. And he may get beat out yet. Miller isn't getting worse either. If Ducasse is better than we expected and giving Miller some competition: great! Wood without a broken leg (2017) is better than Wood with a broken leg (2016) How is this line worse than 2016? http://buffalonews.com/2017/06/30/bills-ol-area-strength-now-carrying-share-questions/

That does put an interesting spin on things. If entirely true, the kid should be given a chance to play assuming he's cleared by club doctors (not just his own).

Steve Freeman and son.

"Lacks elite passing skills." There's a lot of disagreement about Tyrod's ability. I was searching for a broad enough expression that many/most could agree with as a realistic assessment. "Lagniappe" - love this. First time I can remember that a poster sent me to Google to look up the meaning of a word: "a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase." "Think" might be too strong a word for this sentence but I do "hope" this team can make the playoffs if the roster stays healthy and McD surprises us as a HC. But injuries to the wrong players would quickly kill that hope.

The name calling is unnecessary. Many of the TT supporters support TT because (1) he's a Bill, and (2) he's the best QB we have right now. If Peterman develops into the next Jim Kelly and leads the Bills to the Super Bowl, I don't think any TT supporters will be disappointed that TT's no longer under center.

I hear you. But the pessimists out there seem to believe that McD has a lesser chance of succeeding than than the other new head coaches, just because he's with the Bills now. In my mind, we have newer owners who are still learning on the job, a brand new GM, and a brand new HC. I honestly don't know what to expect from that trio but I know they're not victims of Bills history and will chart their own course. Hopefully it's a good one. eball, I so hope you are right. You back up your optimism with some valid points. Then again, like you, I've spent the past 17 offseasons finding reasons to be optimistic only to be disappointed. I'm trying to go into this season with no expectations so my Bills heart doesn't get broken again.

The realist in me thinks you are correct. The optimist in me hopes that McD emerges as a coaching superstar. And under his talented tutelage, many of our players perform better than they've ever performed before. And thus the drought ends! This is exactly what I hope for. And perpetual hope is what fuels my fandom.

Fun stuff. Good to see highlights from a time when the Bills were respected and successful. Thanks for posting.

Negativity * The Bills have a terrible roster (legacy of Whaley et al) and will win 3-4 games. * The Bills don't have a NFL quarterback. * Now that Beane and McD are Bills, they're losers until proven otherwise * All the players who were injured in the past (Sammy, etc) are likely to get injured again this year Reality * The Bills roster has a number of strengths and weaknesses - akin to the average NFL team. * Tyrod has good legs but lacks elite passing skills * The coaching staff seems strong enough on paper but remains an unknown until games are played. * The new personnel staff seems to be well-qualified but hasn't done much yet and it's way too early to rate them * This season - like any NFL season - will depend to a large extent on injuries and none of us knows who will get hurt this year or for how long.

Agreed. The draft was run by Whaley and his guys. They were certainly not in a position to think about intentionally tanking. And Beane has not been systematically 'deconstructing' the roster since his arrival. He hasn't been jettisoning high paid vets to make cap space for younger guys. Silly article.

If we were looking at a span of time and not just one season, Matt Millen's Lions certainly rank among the worst teams of the modern era. In his own words, Millen's record was "beyond awful."

I've got to admit that I'm one of the guys piling on Mills. I thought he was horrendous in pass pro last season. And if he got better as the season went on, it was lost on me. But I have to pause before damning the guy when I hear his offensive line mates praise him the way they do. I'm not holding my breath but I am hoping to see and new & improved Mills this year.

Great story... and great that you, KtD, volunteered for the Big Brother program!

I don't know if it was 3-4 times per game but it was remarkable just how quickly Mills was beat sometimes. If TT wasn't so dammed athletic, he wouldn't have survived the season.

This is how I tend to think, whether it's right or wrong. Of course, winning teams are going to sell out stadiums and sell lots of merchandise. But do the fans still show up when the product is bad? The answer to that question determines how I judge fans. The Steelers, for example, have had only 6 losing seasons since 1972. Their longest playoff drought since the merger was four years. It's too easy to be a Steeler fan. How loyal would those fans be if they had to endure a drought lasting the better part of a generation? How loyal and supportive would any fan base be after 17 years of futility? There's no way of knowing the answer for all 32 teams. So I take fan loyalty/support lists with a grain of salt.

Nope. I'm not interested in being original. I do try, though, to be accurate. This is a forum to share opinions and I shared mine. I disagree that it was a tiny percentage. But I'm willing to admit, perhaps, a prejudice. There's a saying in India, "When a pickpocket walks down the street, all he sees is pockets." Our attitudes/desires/fears influence our observations. Early on last season, I got irritated by the poor pass protection. So maybe I noticed it more than other fans - because it was my sore spot. And maybe your sore spot was Tyrod's slowness in getting the ball out. As your particularly sore spot, maybe you noticed it every time it happened and were less inclined to notice pass pro problems.

Here's what I saw last year. Disagree if you want. * Our offensive linemen were not road-graders for the most part. For example, we often didn't generate much forward push in short yardage situations. Nor did we flatten a lot of defenders. * Our linemen did, however, execute Roman's run blocking schemes beautifully. They got to the right place at the right time and created run lanes. And this is why we led the league in ypc and ypc before contact. * Our line overall was not good at pass protection. Mills was just plain awful. Yep, TT isn't always decisive with the ball. But far too often the guy was running for his life immediately after the snap. I can't disagree with an 'A' for run blocking and 'D' for pass pro. Let's hope Mills really is better this year. Or Dawkins has a great rookie season.

While the methodology isn't clearly explained, it's clearly crap. Back in the 90s, when the Ralph held 80,000, all the seats would be sold out and there'd be another 10,000 or 20,000 fans in the parking lot. The overall total would approach 100,000 people, nearly 10% of the metro population of Buffalo. Few other NFL cities will bring anything close to 10% to the stadium. Ever. Even now, the Bills do well in attendance despite giving their fans a 17 year playoff drought and a lifetime win record of something like .471. I went to a 49ers game back when Young & Rice were still together and the place was packed - with ambivalent fans who got free corporate tickets and barely cheered when the 49ers scored. How do you measure that? I went to another 49 game years later when they sucked and that game was not sold out and by the 4th quarter we Bills fans were louder than the home crowd. And we weren't good that year either. How do you measure stuff like this? As someone who has lived in different cities, it's interesting to note how many dislocated fans I find. In any major American city, for example, it's easy to find rabidly loyal Steelers, Raiders, Browns, Bills and Packer fans. Pick a random sports bar and you'll see them wearing their jerseys. That gives me a sense of which fans are the most enthusiastic and my list certainly doesn't match the Emory list.

Some of the best coaches from the Dark Years were not head coaches. For example: * Bobby April - Special Teams. * Jerry Gray - DC. Football Outsiders ranks the Bills 2004 Defense as the 4th best defense in the past 30 years. Gray was the DC that year. Many of our head coaches were not successful on their side of the ball. Mularkey didn't field a good O. Neither did Marrone. Rex's D was very disappointing. Some of our Head Coaches were just one coordinator away from success. Chan had a good O but never found a good DC. DJ had a good D and ST but never found a good OC. Marrone had a good DC but was horrible as the de facto OC and should have hired a real one. So here's my list... HC: Lynn OC: Chan DC: Greggo ST: Fewell With 8 Head Coaches to chose from, you would think we could easily cobble together a good coaching lineup. Nope.

Good trivia. You should be a color commentator.

I thought HappyDays made a good post with interesting links. I get that some disagree and have understandable reasons for doing so. What I don't get is why we need to attack and ridicule each other. Honestly, it's kind of childish and certainly unkind. As for the O... TT and all our players have particular strengths and weaknesses. It's going to be interesting to see how Dennison will put it all together. Despite the deficiencies last year, ALynn still got us into the top ten in scoring. I hope Rico does the same.

Good to see Moulds and Freddie here. I can't help but wonder how productive Moulds would have been with a better QB situation and how much more Freddie would have been if he played behind a good offensive line.

My evaluation really isn't based on any kind of numbers. And if I were to look at numbers, I wouldn't look at carries. A RB can't control how many times he totes the ball. My evaluation is based on watching Fred play. Back in his prime, there were so many times I thought to myself, "Wow! Imagine what this guy could do if he played behind a good line!" Part of that daydream is seeing Fred get those 300 carries in a season and not getting hurt and not sharing the rock with Travis Henry, Lynch, CJ or whoever else. I think the 5.5 yards per pop Fred earned in 2011 showed what his potential was. But we'll never really know.

We threw the ball more than we passed for a number of reasons: * Our QB was not an elite passer. His accuracy and ability to find open guys were not among the best. * Our RB - McCoy - was elite. When you have a big gun, you shoot it. * Roman was a running game guru. He designed great running plays. * Roman was not a passing game guru. He designed simplistic, easily-defended passing plays. * The guy calling the plays - ALynn - was an ex-RB and ex-RB coach. He understood the run game and was comfortable with it. He was an inexperienced neophyte in the passing game. * Our receiving corps was relatively untalented and banged-up. Yep, TT didn't throw the ball as well as Brady or Brees last year. But that was far from the only reason our passing game wasn't more productive or didn't attempt more passes. It remains to be seen how many of our deficiencies Dennison can fix. I won't judge the 2017 offense until I see it.