simpleman

Thinking about playing Denver this weekend, then I saw this headline this morning on Yahoo. Someone is living in the past, this article is dated in 2014,lol.

I would like to see McCoy and Clay lined up at the same time on most plays, one as a decoy and as an outlet, and let TT read the field and try to get it to the designed target, or use his legs to get the 1st downs. There has to be a way to get them both on the field at the same time and give the defense the same look regardless of which is the designated target. We need to confuse their great D players and make them hesitate just a second too long or commit a second too soon.Miller is great, but can be too aggressive and over confident and commit too soon some times. Use that. We just don't have the receivers or the QB to stretch the field deep. Dink and dunk them to death with the short and medium stuff and hope our D can shut them down. I will take a plodding, ugly, low scoring win over an exciting loss.

It is about coaching. It is about the stupidity of fixing what isn't broken. Castillo is bad, Dennison is mediocre. An old Tolbert is no Gillislee, he is a backup talent useful for only specific situation and used sparingly, not as a change-up player We got rid of young talent and brought in mediocre and old. We trashed what little WR talent we had available for this year. I understand Woods was too rich, but we brought in no comparable replacements for the the talent we let go. We kept a ST coach from 3 coaches ago, but wouldn't keep Kromer. Management is ultimately at fault for not considering consistency when hiring coaches. We have a Tolbert as RB 2 and Ducasse because of bad coaches who are more interested in bringing in their buds, rather than building the best team built to win. And a head coach more interested in having "his guys" as coaches and players, rather than doing what is best for the Bills and getting the best talent available at the right places. You put together a team with the best chance of winning now, rather than caring who selected them. Unless of course, you are tanking for the draft future. And tanking will not work this year with the Colts, the 49ers, Jets, Browns and other really bad teams in the NFL this season.

I too admit I was like WTF when we signed Poyer for so much. I was all in on Hyde, but thought Poyer was a backup and a special teamer. He has been the biggest positive surprise so far this year.

Really, then shouldn't it be "Youse Guys are idiots", or is that just from Cheektowaga?

I am not a big TT fan, but I don't see TT as the real problem this game. Even Shady's stats were crap today. Got to wonder if the O-Line just is THAT bad when you can't effectively run, or pass, for over a whole half of football. And our D was great in the game. Reminds me of a few years back in TT's first year.

That is all I could think at the time. If that had been Sammy, we would have won that game and are 2-0. This lose is on management for gutting the team this year for a gamble on possible unknown gains in next year's draft. A Sammy or an OBJ makes that catch.

I don't think anyone is saying he did not have a decent game. The comments are about you going WAY overboard about drastic improvements. He did use Clay more and passed more "Over The Middle" which he has not done well in the past. It was one game, wait and see how he does in those areas over a 6 game streak before you anoint him Drastically Improved. I realize the COT is around, but the only one I see as being valid would be the COM , Cult of McCoy. He might be more deserving of cult status.

Kelly, I don't disagree that you need "luck" or chance as well. But in order to take advantage that "luck" in business you need to build a foundation that puts you in a position to take advantage of that "luck" if it happens. Otherwise, it is just yet another wasted opportunity. Imagine where the Colts would be today if they had properly planned for the future and taken full advantage of drafting Andrew Luck. I imagine many other teams might have lucked into a later round pick of "Brady" and might not have properly taken advantage of the opportunity like the Patriots did.

I have said this many times on here. The problem is not with the coaches or the talent, it is with the ownership. A team should have a fixed plan and follow through with it. Ownership has failed to do so. If Pegula had brought in qualified consultants ( like some called a Football Czar ) when he first purchased the team to fully evaluate the assets of the team (the talent), and determined how to best use the existing talent and what talent should be retained and what talent to be released. Developing a LONG Term strategy for the team and then followed it, we would be a much better team today. No constant turmoil, no constant rebuilding, just tweaking to get the best talent, management , and coaches. If it was determined the team was best as a 3-4 or a 4-3 defense, a running team, a passing team, a man to man or a zone team, it should have been built according to that long term plan. Rather than hiring a GM and a coaching staff who would bring in their own schemes and require the talent pool to be rebuilt to fit their “way”, the team should have had a plan and hired the best management who would be willing to use the existing talent and follow the selected schemes according to the existing master plan. Using the draft and free agency to tweak the roster to fit the plan and build a better team accordingly. Instead of having a new GM and HC come in and require a complete 3 year rebuild every couple a years and hiring different talent to fit the "latest" plan. The talent would not have to keep relearning new schemes, the roster would not have to be constantly churning just to fit the new schemes. The talent and roster could just be tweaked to get better. No wasting of draft picks like Ragland based on a 3-4 vs 4-3. No Ryan trashing a top defense just so he could do it his way. If it ain’t (sic) broken , don’t fix it. No new HC or GM coming in and bringing their completely different scheme and requiring yet another 3 year rebuild. Someone new comes into management or coaching who is all in on the same master plan, or they are not hired. Just a tweak getting rid of the players who were past their peak and bringing in better replacements at their position. Just tweaking the master plan to keep up with the changing NFL conditions, not totally redoing it every year. Consistency! It is the management that is the problem, not the talent or the coaches. Ownership creates their own problems and unneeded turmoil by their own choices.

Does anyone who attended the open practices know how much practice Peterman has had with the 1s? With Taylor out for at least a week, hopefully he will get time with the 1s to develop timing and chemistry. My biggest concern with Peterman were his blocked passes. Was it mostly on his mechanics, throwing the ball too low, or was it mostly bad protection from the dumpster fire we call an Oline? Even Ritchie was a penalty machine. The penalties on the Oline were unforgivable, they couldn't even line up properly. I hold the coaching responsible for the lack of concentration on those type of penalties and lack of discipline and concentration before the ball is even snapped.

To those that are saying the Bills are going to be better based on better coaching than the Ryan era, I don't see this at all. This is better coaching? Exactly who here thinks Ducasse has looked good in preseason games or open practice? If we uninformed fans can all see just how bad he has been, what does that say about the judgement of the supposedly professional coaches, including our head coach? I'm not defending Miller's play in preseason, but Ducasse has looked horrible.

How about the Mods close this, it has turned into just another excuse for the trolls on the board to sneak in their politics,

The question is how valuable is the talent you have. Tyrod is just a mediocre starter, he is far from a Franchise QB. On offense we have Shady, who IS top shelf talent. At WR we have hopeful potential in Jones, but don't yet know if he will fulfill our wishes. On the OL we have a top shelf LT with an injury history, a top shelf LG approaching the end of his career. A starting TE with a serious injury history. We have question marks starting at S, LB. Kyle is probably in his last year. We have Dareus who is top shelf, but does not always give the effort he should to be top shelf. Hughes who is top shelf, but is a penalty machine because of his lack of control. White who is a rookie that we hope will fulfill our dreams, but is unproven. An unproven Lawson we have hopes for but don't yet know if he is capable of fulfilling our hopes. Building for the future, that is not a lot of talent to build on two years out. The rest of the team is either unproven, nearing the end of their career, or is easily replaceable and can be swapped out with similar talent. Not a lot of basis to build on two years out. And we have already effectively sacrificed this year by downgrading our talent to build for that "future". We lost Sammy, Darby, Woods, Gillmore, Gillislee. All proven talent. This year we have huge drop in the level of proven talent from last year. While it might not be a full tank, it is definitely a team much weaker in talent than the previous year. And it is that way from the choices made by of the management of the team. Call it sacrificing the present in the hopes of being better in the future, or call it a partial tank, they are the same thing whatever you call it. Isn't in fact "tanking" defined as making decisions than weaken your team this year in hopes of being a stronger team in a future year.

The Bills most intelligent FA signing of the year. Hyde and DiMarco being the other two smartest signings. Basically the same 1 year fixed cost as Holmes, with Holmes not being a 10th of the quality WR as Boldin is. They now have 10 games to decide if Holmes is worth the comp cost.

What about Dawkins, is he battling Mills for a spot in TC?

I'm normally not overly optimistic about 2nd year players, but of all the Bills, Seymour definitely seems a possibility for a major jump this year. I think if they start out 0-3 against Buffalo, Oakland, Miami that they start Hackenberg the next 2 before the NE game.

If they are tanking, it is for a QB. How much future do you think Petty and Hackenburg have unless they really light it up. Try em out ,sink or swim, and move on to the next. Petty has already had his chance to impress hasn't he? If you are tanking for a QB, how much value or investment does that say the team has in your future as a QB?

If the Jets are truly tanking, I could see Cardale being given a shot later in the year as a Jet. If you are tanking, it is a great time to give long shot QB's with a lot of talent and potential, but with doubts about them a tryout if you can get them cheap. I'd take on all the cheap QB talent with "potential" that have not been given their shot I could, give them their shot, run through them like TP, pick em up, try em out, dump em, move on to the next, and hope to luck into a jackpot. No risk, a lot to gain, on long shots other team are not willing to take risks on. I would be constantly shopping off the PS of the other teams. If they were on the PS of a team it meant that team saw some potential to that team when they worked them. You are tanking anyway.

Talent does not always translate into on the field performance. On offense we lost proven performance with Woods and Gillislee. We replaced it with Jones, who is a ?? We got better at one position, FB. We have Dawkins ??, who we hope will be better than our worst liability on the O-line, Mills. We lost Kujo who showed value. We hopefully ungraded at Kicker. On defense we lost AW, Graham, Brown and of course Gillmore. We got Hyde. We have hopes and dreams for White, Ragland and Lawson, but at this point they are all ??? Other than hopes and dreams, we have gotten better at Kicker and FB. On defense we got Hyde as a replacement. Until about November, we won't know how much we lost and gained, since most our gains are just hopes and dreams.

Gotta say I don't get some of the "logic" I see on the board. If a player does not give his all on the field every game, he is lazy, a slacker, a bad influence. But if the team does not use all its resources in a year and give it a 100% effort to win, and instead rolls those resources into next year, some fans rejoice.

Maybe my memory is false, but I remember Karlos and Gillisslee having an immediate positive impact in the game. Williams has been a "blah" and a "oh no" whenever i saw him on the field. I don't remember any "ah ha" moments with him. Just because we were lucky twice in a row does not mean we will be again. Although I'm not saying Gillisslee was a playoff difference maker, he was the worst self inflicted wound for the Bills this off season. There was no reason for losing him other than incompetence. The handling of he and Groy were the height of stupidity by the Bills organization. Horrible gambles that were unneeded. Losing Woods and Gillmore were arguably simply too expensive under the cap to keep. Those two RFA were both easily affordable for a 2nd round bid.

You have to read the full article. It is done for the NFL owners. To them, the best fans means the best fans that give a return on their investment. Some of the categories used to rate the best fans. 1.) Fans most willing to buy the type of things available online and the team stores that generate the NFL royalty dollars. 2.) Teams that generate the most revenue for a team when they are a visiting team. 3.) Ticket sales and TV viewer ratings of NFL games at home. 4.) How supportive they are online over the course of the study dates. Of course the Pats have been consistent winners, so the fans are more supportive of a consistently winning team as opposed to a perpetual losing team like the Bills. This study rates a team's fans by how many dollars the NFL gets from them. It is not about true fandom, or football as a sport. It is about the economic impacts to the NFL owners.

Actually if you want to get all technical the "Exhibition Season" begins Aug 9th.