Rocky Landing

I'm a little amazed at how may people are declaring, "give him a full season." I would bet that 95% of these folks (all but the most stubborn of the stubborn) would be singing a very different tune were we to go 0-8 by the bye week.

Interesting thread How many on TBD Even know Haiku?

Golly...

This is hard to hear. Even as a Pat, he was hard to dislike, and even harder to disrespect. I wonder which one it was? Adderall, and Ritalin are both amphetamines. The "why" to this story is important, as well as the "when." Amphetamine is used for a variety of reasons. If he was doing it after the game, he was probably doing little more than damaging himself. Before a game is an entirely different story. Neither are cool. The bad part is that amphetamines are considered a performance, and cognitive enhancer.

So, when your marriage goes bad, and "run its course," you divorce, and jump into another one? I would suggest that a better, more apt analogy (unless you really are a cur), rather than "marriage gone bad," would be "bandwagon not going anywhere." Obviously, a bandwagon that only sees six, or so wins a season is not much of a bandwagon. And so, you hopped off, and climbed aboard another one. Fine. But, at that point, looking over and informing us (an "us" you no longer belong to) of your "unbiased opinions," will be perceived as intellectually dishonest nose-thumbing. That is my unbiased opinion of you: an intellectually dishonest nose-thumber.

The Bears are favored by 6.5 points in this game, and I think that is about right. But, I think it will be a low scoring game. Cutler will get it done. EJ will struggle. But, our run game should be effective. The Bears were horrible at stopping the run sat season (worse, I believe, even than us). That should be improved from last season, but only so much. For me, in this game, Hackett is more of a question mark than EJ. Will he properly utilize our run game? Will he be able to use our run-heavy offense to take pressure off our passing game? Will his obsession with with the hurry-up run our own guys into the ground and befuddle EJ?

I'm sure Fitz would be happy with that.

I read the link. There are two ways this thread could have been titled: 1) "Stevie Johnson Struggling to Secure #3 Spot with 49ers" -or- 2) "Stevie Johnson Competing to Secure #3 Spot with 49ers" I'm so sick of the SJ bashing. Get over it. I will almost always wish a former Bill well. Stevie Johnson's heart, mind, and spirit were always in the right place, and he did right by us during one of the worst periods in Bill's history-- a period we are still in. We could use some of his bright, optimistic energy right about now, in fact.

I think that if the design of the play was to throw to FJ, then he had time. It wasn't- FJ was an option, and clearly not his first read. FJ was also in his blind side. There are QBs who can go through their reads that quickly, see the defenders coming, and get the ball out quick enough. EJ is not one of them. Also, very poor blocking by Richardson that caused EJ to take the sack. EJ needed to protect the ball better, but in preseason, it's more important to protect himself. And, as another poster alluded, had he gone to FJ that quickly, we very well might be reading a thread making comparisons to "Captain Checkdown." Just my take.

Not sure why this is supposed to make me feel better about anything. Nice beard, though.

I think that a good definition of an “internet troll” is someone who, from the anonymous safety of their computer, will goad others into a pointless, no-win debate with the goal of creating conflict. The internet troll, while utilizing rhetorical semantics, is not interested in logic, resolution, honest discourse, deliberation, or even changing minds. The ultimate goal of an internet troll is to elicit as much anger as possible from those with whom they disagree (even slightly). It is this thrill of conflict that gives the internet troll their feeling of power, and validation. No one on these boards should be surprised at the insulting, disrespectful, and ultimately childish tenor of Johnny Gold’s posts. His blindness to his own hypocrisy has been on display in this thread, and others. In an earlier post he complained that someone had made fun of his screen name, and then in the very same post, lamented that he had been censured for calling someone a “faggot.” For real. Who would want to engage a person with such a clouded self-image? Not me. Of course, this sort of cowardly prodding is nothing new, and it can be found all over the internet. In the above post, he tips his hand rather obviously when he declares, to whomever he hopes to offend, “I am smarter than you.” From the comments sections of CNN, to Craigslist Rants and Raves, it has become utterly commonplace. And, while even the majority of our most incendiary posters know better than to sabotage their own viewpoints with such childishness, TBD is not immune.

Quite a "glass half full" perspective you got, there. There are several other, less optimistic, ways you could have interpreted those numbers. For example, you rather arbitrarily picked 11+ teams as the litmus. I think that might apply better had we been somewhere in the neighborhood of nine or ten wins ourselves, last season, or the season before. But, of course, we weren't. We've been 6-10, or worse, for the last five seasons. A more realistic litmus for teams better than us would be 8+. That would be 11 (8+) teams this season, as opposed to 8 (8+) teams last season.

Cheers!

I have enjoyed reading through this thread, and reading the opinions of pessimists, optimists, and realists alike. But, I do wish this thread had been started by someone other than a person who exhibits such disdain for the players. Certainly, fights during practice, while not uncommon in the league, are not the most productive, or encouraging moments of the offseason. But, the notion that this is endemic of a team that would not be capable of winning more than two games in a season is beyond defeatist. And, the OP's continued assertion that he wishes an 0-16 season (when we have no first round pick to look forward to), is offensive to every fan, and spits in the face of every player.

As far as the national media is concerned (and, for that matter, local media as well), just about every single story concerning the Bills is peppered with some variation of the phrase, "...it all hinges on EJ Manuel..." Often, a Bills article will open with that sentiment. Sometimes, it is in the title. And, so far this preseason, EJ has not shown much to be hopeful about. Chris Wesseling, of NFL.com, took a big, steamy crap on EJ's head today. I know of no other team for which the entire season has been so utterly condemned to defeat, entirely on the failure of its quarterback-- after two weeks of preseason. The Bills will absolutely suck... until they don't. Which, who knows? Might be this Saturday.

Has Tuel passed Lewis on the depth chart? As far as I know, Lewis is still #2. Be that as it may, as much as I don't like the idea of Christian Ponder saving our season, I have to agree with you. That being said, I still don't think we should pursue Ponder. It does smack of desperation, and I don't think that's useful at this point in the preseason. If he becomes available, great. If not, it's not worth the distraction.

What does Hogan Have to do to et some love on this board? Has he not exceeded expectations in TC? Has he not improved from last season? Really, this whole thread smacks of desperation. If the FO jumped on this right now, we'd be lucky to get Ponder into the last preseason game. And, how much would that be worth? If we pick up Ponder, it should be in free agency. We should not be trading anything of value for a back-up QB at this time. At this point in the preseason, it would be more of a distraction than a solution.

He would never be approved to buy an NFL team.

This has been an occasional misunderstanding on these boards for a while. According to the Non-Relocation Agreement (and I have read it), the team cannot be sold to a group with plans to move the team within the timeframe of the NRA. That does not preclude the sale to a group that plans to move the team after the NRA has expired.

You remind me of an utterly neurotic girlfriend I used to have. I was drinking my coffee one morning, and she started yelling at me for "criticizing [her] with [my] body language." Once she got mad at me because, apparently, the way I had trimmed my beard meant that I would develop a short temper. But, she never told me that I was selfish because I put on a coat in the winter, or that I lacked leadership skills because I didn't like the glare of bright lights. That would be crazy.

This really is premature. The truth is that we have four very talented running backs, each with unique skill sets. FJ is far (well, maybe not too far) from done. It almost doesn't matter who the starter is-- all four should be on the field a lot. When FJ's production starts dropping, adjust the amount of time he is on the field. But, right now, four starting caliber RBs (or at least three, and one solid back-up caliber) is a really enviable position that won't last long. Our ground game, properly utilized, should be the best in the league. Moving FJ down the depth chart now would not be proper utilization.

I think most teams evaluate a payer like RI in terms of risk vs. reward, and every team has a different formula for that-- especially regarding the sort of baggage RI carries with him. Mike Williams was let go from the Bucs for his baggage. But, we must have a huge storage space adjoining the locker room just for such baggage. Signing RI would bring a certain amount of media scrutiny that many teams would not welcome. I'm not sure that that sort of media frenzy would follow him to Buffalo-- and if it did, he would just be one more Bill with a questionable history, getting a second chance. That being said, I'm not sure we need him.

Also, it's hard to know how our front line is going to be. So far, it seems to me that Marrone/Hackett were experimenting a bit with our front line package-- minus Glenn, which makes a difference. (I think? Am I right in this?) But, the time to sign anybody to the front line isn't after we find out we have problems. This is the time to be fixing our issues, not realizing that we have them. I'm not particularly worried about our front line.

We're the Bills. We love baggage. Edit: Back in Rochester, btw. On my way to Country Sweet.

We don't play the Bears at home, we play them in Chicago. They're working under a very polished offense with a veteran QB who, love him, or hate him, has a proven arm. But, he does rattle, and even with the loss of Kiko, and Bradham, I think we can do just that. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a great game to have Schwartz as our DC. We're kidding ourselves if we think this won't be a hard win, but I do think this is a winnable game. Their run defense was abysmal last season. The more I think about it, the more I think this may be a good first matchup. An opening day win would be huge for the team, especially on the road.