simpleman

:thumbsup:

You give drafted rookies a time period to learn how to adjust to the play in the NFL after playing in college where the overall talent level and coaching is of a much lower level. You don't bring in rookie coaches and put them in top positions like HC, OC and DC. You start them in lower positions in the NFL and let them perfect their craft. You draft experienced top level coaches who have already proved their competence in the NFL. You don't have on the job training at critical positions. Either you perform at a top professional level with the big boys, or you hit the road and get more NFL experience and work your way up until you are actually ready for the job.

I know there a lot of BB haters here, but I do agree, swap QBs and coaches with NE and it's playoffs for the Bills. Buffalo actually has better overall talent than NE beyond QB. But the coaches at NE have a history of getting superior performance out of mediocre talent, while the Bills coaches have a history of getting mediocre performance out of superior talent.

Actually I looked it up before posting, and found the phrase was capitalized in about 90% of the listings. Since it is slang phrase I went with the most common usage. Dammit Captain, I'm a fan, not an English major!

So many targets on the offense, and a front office who keeps giving us ample reasons to discuss their "progress", and so many posters on the board instead prefer to choose to play grammar and spelling police to other posters. This is a sports fan bulletin board for *&%#'! Sake, not a college English classroom!

Buffalo appears to be gifting Pettine with some serious job security. He has to be having very pleasant dreams of getting that great piece of the puzzle toward building a SB bound team with that very high Buffalo #1 pick next year, regardless of how his own team plays this year.

Respect and loyalty must be earned. It is not like parental love, unconditional. This offense and the offensive coaching has done almost nothing to earn our loyalty and respect. This team is lucky all they get is a little well deserved booing by the fans. The team is lucky they are just booing instead of voting with their pocket books and just being ignored.

It is sad to see that so many posters on TBD have to be grammar police. We all can not be perfect writers. The original poster had a valid opinion and brought information to the board I was not aware of. You may disagree with the poster or not like what he says. But he was not nasty or derogatory of others. He has a right to express his opinions in a civil manner. It is so frustrating to me that people choose to personally attack the poster, rather than politely and civilly state their opposing opinion on legitimate issues that other posters may choose to discuss.

The excuses keep coming. If the excuse is the preseason is the time to check out your rookies and see what they can do, how do you justify Pears, Urbik and mostly Legursky being in there at this later point in preseason? The Bills know what they are capable of, they have not shown they are getting any better. The Bills already know their ceilings. Legursky is not even average as a backup. If it was evaluating talent and trying out combinations, and not about winning, why not concentrate on Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio. Give them plenty of opportunity and experience in live game situations and see what you have in them. Loosing with Legursky, Pears and Urbik shows us nothing we already didn't know. They were not good enough last year, and still are not good enough. We did not have to suffer losing to know that. Losing with Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio at least serves a purpose of evaluating what you have and giving them live game exposure. Poor coaching decisions are piling up as we look at reasons for our offensive woes.

Are you saying that while Tebow is not an NFL QB, that Tuel & Lewis have qualities beyond Tebow's that make them NFL QBs? Please explain those qualities they possess that Tebow does not. I am not saying I want Tebow as a starting QB, not a Tebow fan. But he has a proven record of being able to find a way to win in the NFL, which is all I expect of a NFL backup QB. To find a way to win a couple of games a year when he is thrown in there replacing the starter for a game or two.

Exactly, there is more than just a yearly profit margin to consider in an investment. It is called Capital Gains!

A lot of serious Kool aid drinking happening on TBD. Ask me how many legitimate 1s 2s and 3s we have at Bye week, not before any actual games have even been played.Then we can agree or disagree based on more than wishful thinking.

I am painfully aware how fragile EJ was last year and how many games he missed. You have to be in them to win them. The point is it would have been easy to get another pro QB that played enough games to win just 4. Being durable enough to even play the game is part of the battle. We always talk about durability being an important attribute in an pro athlete.

oops! Brain skip I meant Rob Johnson, corrected.

I'll take that question. The Bills just let Andy Levitre walk. Yes, he wanted too much, but the Bills just shot themselves by opening a giant hole and now needed to fill that gaping wound. Their options at guard, Horrendous! Available in the draft at 16, Kyle Long, G Pro Football Focus' All-Rookie Team, named to NFL.com's All-Rookie Team, 2014 Pro Bowl I would say there was a critical position of need at G, and Long did pretty well in the "accomplishing" department. The Bills won 4 games with EJ at QB. I think there are a number of QBs last year that might have won 4 games out of 16 with the Buffalo "D" last year. The "D" practically won that many games as it was. Take away Carpenter and the "D", and they probably would not have won half of those 4 games. Even "Trentative" in his prime or Rob Johnson might have won 4 games last year. Even Fritz could have won 4 games last year, uggg! So far until the new season plays out "Smith= EJ". It is too early to tell , but so far this preseason possibly at least Manziel=EJ. Bortles=EJ, Bridgewater=EJ. We have seen little of a "high ceiling" from EJ so far to put him above those mentioned.

Whaley at this point has done enough to earn a benefit of doubt depending on his actions the next few months. Hackett so far has shown nothing to prove his value and instill confidence in his competency. Crossman has proven his incompetency. Marrone's support of Crossman and of Hackett have brought into question his judgement. And the teams "all in" on EJ even though he has yet to show enough to justify it, without a viable Plan B if he fails, calls their judgement into question. And considering EJ's shaky viability, their lack of concern about obtaining a quality backup QB is scary. Tuel and Lewis, really? If I was paying a Billion Plus for the team, I would demand more than just adequate in my management and coaches to protect that massive investment.

I can understand speculation about management trading CJ this year for a player that fits the "win now" philosophy. Current management had nothing to loose trading away next years future for Sammy this year. With new ownership by next spring being certain, it is "win now" to try to impress the new owner and beat the odds trying save your job when the new guy brings in "their own team". But why would current management get rid of CJ this year for "future considerations", when their own future depends on "winning now". The team is a weaker team without CJ, if there is no important "new cog" added in the "NOW"! And none of us can predict what will happen with contracts and negotiations next year with new ownership, new management members brought by the new owner, and a definitely unique and new business philosophy which will be set by the new owner. Next year is a total mystery, at least till we know who the new owner will be.

You are making some big assumptions here. 1.) That the Bills would still have felt pressured to draft EJ , or any questionable QB in the earlier rounds in a very weak QB year. They could have selected their star WR with their 1st last year. 2.) That the trade terms would have been the same as with KCs. KC gave up a 2nd rather than 3rd this year because they won over 8 games last season. Are you predicting that A Smith at QB would have given the Bills at least an 8 game season last year? 3.) The trade might have included a third, a 4th or a 5th and a 2nd last year, with a conditional pick this year. It might have cost us a Goodwin, a Meeks or a Duke Williams. We have no way of knowing it would have cost us a Woods or a Kouandjo. 4.) If we did have A Smith and had 8+ wins last year, we might not have needed to give up a 1st this and next year in a huge gamble for a star WR this year. We might have gotten an even a better OL player than Kouandjo with our 1st pick this year. We have no way of knowing how valuable our new WR or our new OL pick actually will be, it is too soon. 5.) We really don’t know yet if there was any quality QB in the draft last year, it will be a few years before we know the results of every QB drafted last year. And remember, only EJ and G Smith even went in the early rounds last year. Even if the Jets drafted early like they did, we don’t even know that they would have taken EJ over G Smith, he might have gone later and still been available to the Bills like all the other QBs were. EJ could have still been the backup and the possible QB of the future behind A Smith and given the time to mature and grow in that role. We had plenty of cap room last year, the A Smith contract would not have been a deal breaker for the Bills, especially if he was a winner for them.

Too many Smith's. No, I meant signing Alex Smith as a short term solution till the Bill's found a QB to develop. He is solid and a team could have been built and developed around him so that when the Bill's finally pulled the trigger on a real franchise potential QB, instead of ANY of the questionable QB picks last year the players would be in place around him on offense to allow the Bills to ease him into the lineup and not throw him to the wolves in desperation. I'm not saying the Bill's should not have picked EJ, he was the best of the litter of QB runts last year. They were all runts and they got the best looking of the batch, just that they all were runts after all, and they picked one too high. As others have posted, the differences in opinion is would A Smith have been worth the cost. I am one who thinks he was. And if the Bills had waited until the 2nd round or made that 2nd trade down that year before picking EJ, they still might have had Woods or better and Kiko. They might have still gotten EJ, we will never know. And who knows, maybe we would have not given up our 1st next year in another desperate gamble to help justify the questionable EJ pick in an attempt to make it look better.

There is no doubt there was not much choice last year in the draft. Of any I would have preferred EJ, but would have selected no one with the 1st round pick. None was worthy. To say there was no choice is wrong though. Smith was available, and would have worked till the Bills had a QB worthy of a pick. As it is, we gave up our chance for a QB next year and did nothing to even find a later round alternate this year. EJ never looked like a sure thing, but the Bills treated him as one. Now we pay the price if they are wrong. Again the team is going all in on choices and not having a legitimate Plan B if they are wrong. Like getting a legitimate replacement for Lev in the O-line. Or a legitimate plan B for replacing Byrd if the existing, previously unimpressive players don't magically step up . That is the real problem with Bills management, it is not about the gambling, it is about not having a legitimate Plan B if the gamble fails.

All of this is simply venting and theatrics. If the team is to be sold to an owner who announces a desire to move the team to Toronto, the most effective course of action is to put all that energy, anger and effort into convincing your US Congressperson and Senator to sponsor a bill to repeal all special legal exemptions, anti trust exemptions and special tax treatments for the NFL and its owners if they allow a team to locate outside of the United States. This approach would appeal not only to Bills fans, but would be able to pull the emotional Nationalistic & PATRIOTIC heart strings of all true Americans, a much larger group of people. It is all about the dollars to the NFL owners, and losing all the exemptions and special treatments would trigger their self interest and self preservation instincts. They would NOT approve the new owner due to pure self interest. In this case it would not matter if the Bills fan was living in WNY or not, every Bills Fan in the US could help out. And the efforts would be 100% effective without being crude, rude or obnoxious. It IS all about the Money!

A lot of those opposed to the idea think it is strictly for the benefit of the players. True NFL talented players are a very rare resource. Only a few humans have the raw talent and ability to transition into a good NFL player. That is why we pay them so much as a society. Smart businesses have learned that if you have a valuable resource, it is often cheaper and quicker to repair/rehabilitate it than spend time and money looking for a replacement from scratch. Peoples/workers are often a businesses most valuable resource, especially in professional sports. We are not talking about a unlimited pool of candidates like we are for an assembly line worker, we are talking about a very limited pool of candidates. The better the talent is of those playing the game, the better the quality of the game is to watch.

Oh really. I just don't see this, I don't see a defense better than last year. Are you saying: Schwartz > Pettine Meeks or D Williams > Byrd Rivers > Kiko Brown is a rookie, So at this point we don't even know what we have in him. Agree we added positives in Graham & Spikes to the D, but other than that I see no other improvements over Kiko, Byrd. Before the loss of Kiko, maybe I could have seen this. But along with the loss of one of the top S in the league, the balance tilts the other way. I don't see better, I guess we disagree on D talent assessments.

I am curious about this statement.Was this one of the rules they created about a member of the kicking team going out of bounds? I never quite understood the rules about a member of the kicking team going out of bounds. Could he still make contact with a opposing player in bounds without getting a penalty as long as he didn't contact the ball? Could someone explain the rules to me?

I'm a big fan of Summers. I think he has the skills and qualities to be a success in the NFL. But, sadly I think the numbers make it hard for the Bills to keep a FB on the roster. I hope I'm wrong.