hondo in seattle

I've got to admit my expectations are low for this game. The Pats are clearly the better team and they're at home. Then again, on any given Sunday...

I'm sorry but this sounds like the typical Loser's Lament when someone else wins a lot. I don't believe there's any institutional bias that favors the Pats. I do think that occasionally some refs might give a questionable call to a certain coach or player due to respect, complaint-fatigue, or whatever. That's just human nature. What would writing the NFL a letter accomplish? There are complaints about officiating every week. They already know they've got to find ways to make it better. I don't think there's anything we can do to escalate the NFL's awareness of fan concerns. They're already highly aware. Remember, owners are getting screwed by bad officiating as much as fans. And the NFL is its owners.

Big time college wideout... 2nd round draft pick... relegated to a down-the-field blocker.... It's got to be sorely disappointing.

Not as one sided as Sheppard for Hughes, but I thought trading Greg Bell and picking up Cornelius Bennett was an awfully good trade for the Bills.

Big Cat... I get you're reasoning AND YET.... Chan Gailey found a way to make CJ productive. What can't other OCs?

Yeah, I thought if anyone beside Chan Gailey knew how to use CJ, it would be Sean Payton. Maddog69 might be right.

After he strung together a few nice games, I once thought Drew Bledsoe with the franchise QB we all had been waiting for. We all know how that worked out. TT's play has been impressive. I just think it's way premature to judge him better than RW. Let him build up his resume a little more first.

These models are based on algorithms that attempt to predict future performance based on past performance. I hope this turns out to be a flawed approach. * The offense is still getting better in the first year of Roman's system. The TT-Watkins-Shady combo is still improving. More importantly, the triplets are healthy now and hopefully remain so for the rest of the season. * The defense is still getting better in the first year of Rex' system - which has obviously been a problematic transition. Execution will improve as the season progresses. I'm not convinced that the Bills we've seen at the beginning of the season are the same Bills we'll see at the end. I think there are sound reasons to expect an uptick in performance.

The Pats have won every game this season with the average score being 35-18. We're a squeak ahead of .500. You mention Rex's ability to game plan Brady. What about Belichick's ability to game plan the Bills? I really, really hope we beat the Pats. But I don't see anything in the matchup that says we do.

I hate when WRs are measured by their stats. The strength of the team around them is so important. I agree Moulds was one of the all-time great Bills receivers. Potentially a HOFer if he had played for a team that routinely played on national TV and went to the playoffs.

I know all the Freddy-was-overrated-and-over-the-hill-anyway guys will disagree, but I thought the same thing. Which is not to say I'm unhappy with Shady. Not at all. Shady looks great when healthy. Our O Line, on the other hand, doesn't look great. Besides Richie, we're not winning a lot of one-on-one battles. But Roman's play design combined with Shady's speed and shiftiness seems to work.

Without compelling evidence that Rex is lying, I'm going to take him at his word. Rex has flaws but so far I don't think dishonesty is one of them.

When talking about the team captain controversy, I got the impression that Cowher doesn't like Rex. He made some good points, and in all honesty, I'd rather have Cowher for a head coach. But it was good to see most the commentators supported Rex's decision to make IK a captain. Rex is our coach and I gotta take his side.

That's what I thought when I saw the play live. Davis was looking at Decker as if wondering why he was still tangled up. He wasn't looking at Fitz and was apparently not expecting the ball. I disagree. We earned the turnovers. Then we gave the Jets a gift with the muffed punt and they did nothing with it. The Bills executed better than the Jets. That's why we won. Even the pass to pass to Davis... I think we earned that incompletion by knocking the receivers off their routes when they tried to run an illegal pick play.

I don't know where we get 5 more wins because I'm not sure how good this team is yet. As was pointed out several times on the broadcast yesterday, the Bills win the majority of games when TT, Shady and Sammy are all healthy at the same time. Let's see if that trend continues. Plus, I haven't given up on Rex as a defensive guru despite his uninspiring start. He's got a strong record as a defensive coach. He might just yet make this defense dominant. If the Bills keep playing like they did the first half of the season, they're a mediocre .500 team. But they just might have the potential to be something more. And that potential may become reality over the second half of the season. These Bills might just be(or become) better than every team - other than the Pats - remaining on the schedule.

Thanks for posting this. Great article. I always watching replays of big Bills gainers. Bucky does a nice job breaking the plays down.

QBR tries to be too fancy. For example, it weighs passes near the opponents endzone more heavily then plays near your own end which are less likely to contribute to a score. (In fact, the battle for yards and field position matter where ever you are). It weighs "clutch" plays more heavily. ("Clutch," though, is an arbitrary concept. Game-changing plays can happen at any time and any down-and-distance). It evaluates passes differently if the QB is under pressure or not. (This may be a good idea but it's highly subjective). Their exact algorithm is an proprietary secret but the results speak for themselves. QBR is useless. I think ESPN will eventually modify it or ditch it due to it's lack of credibility. Thanks for posting. I hadn't seen this before but it reaffirms my conviction that passer rating is a far better metric than QBR.

Style versus substance Rex's style of communicating to the media doesn't nullify his substance as a coach. I worry about Rex's coaching for other reasons - particularly the performance of our D so far. But I don't care if he's trying to 'win press conferences.' It doesn't matter.

The outrage of course is that some are going to twist Rex's motivation into something about tweaking the Jets over the punch to Geno. Some fans are informed enough to know Rex lets players be captains against their former teams all the time. Others, less informed, will think Rex is being a classless buffoon - and this reflects badly on the whole organization. I don't think it's right to exclude IK from the honor when Rex has a tradition in place. Then again, I don't like the negative publicity.

Yikes. TT is currently the 4th ranked QB in the NFL. If he continues like that, I think we can 'settle' for him and focus on OL and LB.

I agree with all of this including the caveat: "we don't know if this will continue..." Didn't Bledsoe once start off with an impressive first half of the season only to fade? I'd like a bigger sample size before I crowned TT as the franchise QB we've all been waiting for. Nonetheless, he's been fun to watch so far!

Does it matter? The two are related. Players will execute certain schemes better than others. In any case, execution and scheme are both Rex's responsibility. And today we gave up 397 yards to the Fins. That's not good. That wasn't a great D out there. Rex has enough talent on the defensive roster that we should expect better.

I can't remember any specific articles or quotes but I have the same impression.

#20 is probably generous considering how they've all been injured. Watkins and TT are both young/inexperienced and hopefully their best years are ahead of them.

A sandwich consists of slices of ingredients (meat, cheese, tomato, etc.) on slices of bread. A hot dog is a particular sausage on a bun. It is not a sandwich but it is a close relative. A subway sandwich is a sandwich and not a hot dog (despite the way the bread is cut) because it follows the sandwich script more closely: slices of ingredients on slices of bread.