2003Contenders

Well, he did have a big non-catch taken away by the refs, when they signalled JP "in the grasp" on a 20+ yard pass play.

I didn't see it, and it would be out of character for LT to have done that.

Agreed. There were too many times today (as has been the case all season) where Willis just needed to run forward for a couple of yards to get a first down, but instead danced too much before trying to head North. Maybe it's unfair with LT looking like a man among boys, but Willis looked very pale in comparison.

Good point... Our finishing 3rd last season, rather than 2nd or 4th made a difference. Somehow I think we would have won today against the Chiefs or Raiders instead of the Chargers, for example. Call it the luck of the draw.

In the PC, Jauron said that the first timeout was taken because the playclock was down to 1 second. He said that the officials did tell him about the toe-heel rule -- and in hind-sight he probably should not have challenged it. However, he thought it was worth the the risk, since he thought that there may have been a long enough pause between the toe and the heel touching.

Human nature dictates that the officials will usually err on the side of the home team. That seemed to strangely go the opposite way today. 1. The JP non-sack was a judgement call by the officials who ruled him in the grasp. That could just have easily been an advantage if JP had fumbled or thrown an INT there. For those who saw it, there was also a play earlier in the game where JP clearly grounded the ball -- but the officials called it an incomplete pass. 2. There was a non-call for pass interference intended for Lee Evans in the first half, where the ball was ruled uncatchable. On replay, I do think that Lee may have had a shot at it, if he wasn't being mauled. I have always hated that rule. To me it's still a penalty, since there was illegal contact outside the 5 yard buffer, right? At the very least, it should be a 5 yarder and automatic 1st down. 3. The Peerless near-catch along the sidelines should probably have been called a force-out. There is no question that he would have come down in bounds without the push -- since he darn near came down in bounds WITH it! Logic would dictate that the toe should represent one-foot-down, but the rule doesn't work that way. According to Jauron, the officials explained this rule to him during the timeout -- and he decided to challenge it anyway. I blame Jauron for the stupidity in challenging the call more than anything else. In the long run, it probably wouldn't have mattered, but it would have been nice to have had that last timeout. 4. The non-interference call on Josh Reed on the very next play was actually a good non-call. The ball was tipped -- and replays showed that pretty clearly. You could see the projectory of the ball change slightly after the tip. There were also numerous holding penalties on the Chargers' offense that were not called throughout the game. Oh, well... They say that there is holding on every play, I guess. I agree that the officials were not especially kind to the Bills -- and it DID seem like most of the close calls (and non-calls) went against the Bills. Still, I don't believe that there was any impropriety on the part of the officials today.

Given where we were on the field at the time, I could live with the decision to punt. I was more bothered by the decision to go into the fetal position with that last offensive position of the half. Three straight runs... and then a punt. That was also inexcusable that the refs gave the Chargers that extra time out with the non-requested measurement. Why was there a measurement in the first place? The Bills punting unit was already out on the field!

Given the well known Madden Jinx, let's hope that the 2007 cover boy is Tom Brady!

Yea, I think you're missing the point here. I despise Peter King, but I did not take this comment as any kind of slight against Buffalo. His point was just that as GREAT as Moorman has been, you don't realize HOW great, unless you understand that he punts in probably the stadium with the least desirable conditions.

Regardless how you rank them specifically, it's pretty clear that the top 5 teams in the NFL are the Colts, Chargers, Ravens, Bears, and Patriots. Before the season ends we will have had to play ALL of them.

He just laughs, says no comment -- and let's his play on the field do his talking.

That's what I was afraid of...

Besides, it's not as if Crowell did much either... except for MISS a ton of tackles.

Anybody know?

Note also that Garrard threw 4 ints in that last game against the Texans, largely becasue of his receivers.

We've beaten the Texans every time Carr was on his feet to finish the game. The one loss came when Jeff Posey knocked him out of the game -- and, uh, Tony Banks came off the bench to win it... If we knock Carr out again, then we have to deal with Sage Rosenfels coming in for relief. Remember him?

Bad comparison... Rivers inherited a playoff caliber team that's been running the same offense for the past couple years.

I guess you mean Tom Brady? Who wouldn't want him? Now, if you're talkin' Brady Quinn, how exactly is he a "good proven quaterback"?

I have bad news for you JP haters. Barring something really crazy happening -- such as him tossing 20 ints in these next 7 games -- he'll be back next year. Here is a stat for you: 1, 1, 2, 5... Those are the rounds of draft picks that TD used to acquire QBs (Drew and JP) between 2003-2005. You think the team could have used some help along the OL and DL and maybe even a quality TE to boot with those picks? Maybe JP isn't the long-trem answer. But until the team can fix other obvious areas of need, it's doubtful that ANY QB is going to be successful back there. If JP still sucks after some of the other parts have been fixed, that's when the team will start looking elsewhere. There may be some on this board that don't undertand this, but I think the coaching staff does.

In the past couple weeks he's been sacked once for every 4 drop-backs. Asking him to throw it 40 times per game would equate to 10 sacks at that rate. How long do you think he'd stay healthy given those odds?

Yea, how'd that work out for Gradkowski and the Bucs again?

OK... Let me try to say this for the upteenth time... Clearly the offensive strategy going into that Colts game was to run an ultra-conservative offense to shorten the game and keep Manning and company on the sidelines. Given that the Colts have one of the top 3 pass defenses and the WORST run defense, it makes sense, right? Also, given that Manning didn't see the football before over 8:00 minutes had been chewed off the clock, and that we were in the position to WIN that game in the 4th quarter against a superior opponent, I'd have to say that the gamplan was sound. No? I am so sick to death of hearing this stuff about how the coaching staff doesn't trust JP. Anyone that knows anything about Jauron knows that he's alwasy been a proponent of the run-first offense with a caretaker QB. Remember, he had guys like Jim Miller and Shane Matthews playing QB for him in Chicago. There was once a saying that 5 things can happen when a QB drops back to pass, and only 1 of them is good. That JP was sacked 4 times on just 16 drop-backs would seem to illustrate that point. And -- I can't remember a single one of those 4 sacks that I would call his fault in this particular game. How might everyone's view of what happened Sunday have changed if Freeney doesn't beat Royal -- why exactly was Royal in the situation of having to block Freeney anyway, McNally? -- and Losman ends up tossing a TD pass there? Probably not in the slightest, I guess, as many here didn't want to give him credit for the game winning TD pass to Evans against the Packers the week before...

Good point. I also think that history has shown that DJ believes in building a strong defense and relying on the running game on offense. Get used to seeing the 8/12 days like that from Losman. He's doing what the coaching staff requires of him. Maybe all this forcing him to stay in the pocket will eventually reap dividends, when he HAS to throw the ball. That is, of course, if the OL can protect.

They also had an excellent draft -- picking up 2 immediate contributors along the OL in the first round. What a novel idea!

When DJ and the rest of the staff review the fact that Garrard threw 4 INTs in the loss to the Texans on Sunday, he's liable to think otherwise...