ThurmasThoman

i think now is the perfect time to put in tavaris jackson. let's see what we have. the competition is WEAK from here on out. just about as bad as the bills, and thats saying a lot. im assuming that russ brandon is surfing the internet tonight, and this thread caught his eye. well listen up russ. if you put in jackson now, and he is able to light it up the next 5 weeks against sh*tty teams, the fanbase will have something to believe in going into the offseason. it doesnt take much to trick bills fans - hell, weve been watching this garbage for 13 years. just put him in, lets see what the kid can do. say we go 4-1 to end the season with jackson under center. guarantee season ticket sales will go up again next year. OR. stick with fitz. but boy oh boy is that playing with fire. i cant speak for the rest of bills nation, but im about as optimistic, "in it til were mathematically eliminated every year and then watch the rest just because i love the team" as they come. but this year? im done pal.

cash or check pal?

where did this come from? getting us fired up for jaguars week already? here, let me help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZrBa-aWgM last playoff game at the ralph, its only been 16 years.

fitz gets benched. qb is the most important position on the field. we're 4-7. in 2 of those wins (arizona, miami) we barely did anything on offense, and won because of our special teams. in the other 2 wins, freddy and cj were the difference. fitz hasnt done anything. why not put jackson in? thigpen? give me a reason to watch--if tavaris jackson is announced starter, im tuning in at 1pm sharp. if its the same old story, im going to be out there christmas shopping with my family, getting a late lunch, and really enjoying a two-day weekened for the first time in 2 months. cant wait.

our defense played phenomenal today. gailey is dumb for punting because of the TIME left in the game, not because of our defense. colts wouldnt have scored on that drive, they only scored 13 points on offense all day, and 3 of those were freaking gift wrapped to them at the end of the first half--and they shouldnt even have gotten those because a) they fumbled at the 1, and b) the clock ran out. but to think fitz was going to take us 80 yards for a td in 1 minute? god i hate this team.

kind of glad the season is over. i have so much work to do, and i sit on this stupid message board b*tching about the bills all week long. reading articles to prep for sundays game. playing around with the playoff calculator. basically building my life around sundays at 1. not next week. im going to be doing something totally different. maybe ill go see the new james bond movie, go for a hike, go christmas shopping, i dont really care. if we win, we win. im quitting on this season though - the players did 10 weeks ago, so what difference does it make. and next season? if gailey is our coach, im not watching.

this hurts.

you would think, from this play calling, were down 3 tds in the fourth. but now. two tds in the third. but why run it?

and now for the sh*t cigar to signal the end to this party: a blown acl for spiller perhaps?

i feel like crying. this team just sits on my chest like an elephant, crushing all hope, optimism, and belief that things can get better in life if you just have a positive outlook. i can see whats going to go wrong from 100 miles away, but so what? every bills fan can. why wouldnt gailey just take a knee to end the half? why havent we scored an offensive touchdown in 3 weeks? why do i even care. flutie takes us to the playoffs? rebuild with johnson, with bledsoe, with losman, with edwards, with fitzpatrick, and then with someone new next season. i hate this team, i hate this season, i hate that i wasted 11 sundays this fall caring about this. i hate it all.

chan gailey should be fired right now. i cant believe we didnt take a knee to go into the half down 4. because we were going to go 90 yards in 50 seconds??? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

LAST YEARS worst NFL team vs. LAST THIRTEEN YEARS worst NFL team that's how.

49ers are making a huge mistake.

I think it's time for Bills nation, collectively, to get over themselves. The Bills are 2 games back from the playoffs. The 2 teams that currently hold the wild card spots are the steelers: down to their third string qb the colts: remaining games against the texans twice, the lions, and yes, us. Is the bills record bad? Yes, it is. BUT if you watch the games, you can take away a few things: 1) the week 1 game against the jets--fitz had a terrible first half, his worst half of football this year. we lost to them, yes, but a road divisional game in week 1 is hard, and we played significantly better against them in the second half. i think we are the better team, and will beat them at home week 17. 2) two losses to the patriots -- could have won either of those games, or both of them. had a big lead in the first game, and were driving to win the second game. have you watched the patriots this year? to think that we are closer to the patriots than we are to the rest of the league is heartening. 3) losses to the texans and 49ers - the 2 best teams in football. played each of them well for a half, BOTH ON THE ROAD. idk what to say about these games, these 2 teams are the class of the nfl. i dont feel bad about not being able to go on the road and beat them. 4) 1 loss to the titans--in my opinion, the only game this year that as a bills fan, you have any merit b*tching about. we should have won that goddamn game, and it kills me that we didnt. but its not like we were blown out, we lost at the last second. our defense played terrible that day, and mario was playing hurt. so through 10 weeks, we had 1 stinker of a game, now we have the easy part of our schedule. Just try to enjoy the next 6 weeks. Even if we lose this week, we can still catch pittsburgh.

do i personally think we'll beat the colts? no. i've been a bills fan for too long, and had my heart broken too many times. i can see waking up monday morning to go to work after this long weekend, dejected and despondent after the bills either a) choked away another sure-fire victory in the closing minutes, or b) got blown out of the water by a clearly superior colts team, thus emphasizing how far of a gap there is between the playoff teams (colts) and the non playoff teams (us.) vegas has us as 3 point underdogs too. but who really knows. the colts only quality win of the season appears to be over the packers. they have some cupcake wins to pad that record, just like we should by the end of the year. their schedule is brutal from here on out. are they truly a 6-4 team? are we truly a 4-6 team? who's better? statistically we're both very close in terms of points scored and points allowed. our d has been playing somewhat well as of late. i mean, what can you say? it's going to be quite a game. it's not a sure thing, and a win would be a pleasant surprise. im just going to try to actually enjoy watching it.

domes? outside? on grass? on turf? last 13 years in general. lets just say: "bad all around"

me and you have pretty much the same outlook on this team. great post! im very nervous about this game this weekend. it would be amazing to win the coin toss, defer, force a 3 and out, get a good punt return, and have cj break open a screen to go up 7-0 quickly on the road, and silence that dome. i do NOT want to play catch-up, in a shoot out, on turf, on the road. it's been a long, strange, up and down road this season. bills fans are passionate--at many, many points this season, that passion has boiled over into anger. anger at the d, at fitzpatrick, at gailey, at ralph, at each other. but here we are. 2 games back from a wild card, 6 to play, and maybe the easiest schedule in the conference to end the season. you would have to be the most pessimistic of pessimistic bills fans to be able to look at our schedule, look how we've played the last 3 games, and think we have absolutely no shot at a wild card. there are a lot of careers on the line these next six weeks--this is the best look at the playoffs this organization has had this late in the season since about 2000. win out, and for all intents and purposes (unless the colts and the steelers both win out as well) were in. i mean, you can hate fitz, hate the d, hate wannstedt all you want. but here it is, almost december, and the bills are playing for the playoffs. i guess life isnt perfect, but can't fans just be happy with this, for this season? we got a look at it. our december games are important. personally? i think this is fun, and im looking forward to the last month of the season. GO. BILLS.

thats pretty much what it comes down to. i think that after that loss to new england, i was about as down in the dumps as one could get with regards to the outlook on their pro sports team. questioning what the point of even watching the games was. but then, within 24 hours, i realized how big that miami game was. win that, and were right there. i have read THREE national articles this week talking about the bills and the playoffs. i really really really really really really wish we had beaten the titans, to take some of the implications off of the game this weekend. i mean, this is our season. not saying we cant lose it and still make the playoffs. but christ allmighty. a win this weekend would be the most important bills win since... ummm.... i mean.... im drawing a blank? since we beat miami at home in week 17 in 1996 to secure a home playoff game the following weekend against that same dolphins team? help me out here.

the way the conference was those days (steelers, colts, patriots,) even if we had gotten in, the odds of us, as a wild card, beating 2 of those 3 teams, is/was next to impossible. i dont understand how losing THAT game keeps people up at night. to me, that game against the steelers was a wildcard game, for all intents and purposes. it was fun anticipating it, it was (somewhat) fun watching it, and i was over the loss in a few hours afterwards. OP is right too--the myth of that game has certainly grown over the years. i remember it as being more of a "nobody circles the wagon like the buffalo bills, winners of 6 straight, but can they shock the world and beat the completely dominant pittsburgh steelers to snatch a wild card?" somehow that's turned into the bills choking away their season against a no-name, 3-12 scrub squad that came into the ralph and shut us down, LIGHTS OUT.

a win against the colts completely undoes that titans loss. so many more paths to the playoffs are available to us with a win this week.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine I love playing around with this thing. First person who can come up with a scenario that has the Bills making the playoffs if they lose their next 2 games wins. GO! I just found a path for the Bills to make the playoffs at 7-9! Most importantly - we can lose this week and still have a strong shot at the playoffs with 9-7. In fact, there are a lot of possibilities for us to make it with a 9-7 record. Man, i could literally play with this thing all night (thats what she said.)

it feels for the colts like the week after we lost to new england in week 4: *that moment in the season when you think you've arrived, and then are sent a message a from a far superior team that you, in no way, shape, or form, have arrived.* the next week, we got our poop pipe properly pummeled out in san fran. i see a similar scenario taking place in their dome.

thats a great counterpoint to my original post, well done. well let me ask you this, then: everyone trumpets this doom and gloom scenario -- that the league is evolving into a flag football league. would non-tackle football be that bad of a thing? literally every time there is a big hit now, i hold my breath waiting for the yellow flags to fly. "Hard" hitting is clearly being legislated out of the game. idk, i've just never watched the game for the "lights out" hits. i always feel bad for the player on the receiving end of them. to be honest, i watch because #1) buffalo has a pro team ...and. well, that's pretty much the only reason i watch professional football.

\if we had beaten tennessee and new england, this thread would do mario williams airport numbers.

the problem as it is, is this: nfl, college, and even high school players have a "false sense," of security due to the helmets they have on. this has changed the way the game is played, over generations. players lead with their heads in literally, EVERY, situation--a player can be down on the field of play, after a catch, and at least one safety is going to "pile on," head first. in my PERSONAL opinion, even removing face masks would reduce concussions by 75%. the game needs to get back the mind/body connection that has been lost. players feel like they are driving around a car, behind a windshield--invincible, for all intents and purposes. unscrew the facemasks for a weekend next preseason. i GUARANTEE not a single player will leave the field of play because of "cobwebs." with all this being said-- i want these freaks hopped up on every PED available, and i want to see someone die out there-preferably a patriot. it's a blood sport, and that's why i watch. but all these doom and gloom articles about the nfl being extinct in 20 years? no. there just won't be any more helmets. boo hoo.