Dan

I think the thread poses a misleading question. Technically, wouldn't the Bills have to use Lee and TO in their offense, first? Then we could determine if they're being used properly or not. I would suggest that a better question, at this point, would be: Why are the Bills giving Lee and TO so many weeks off? We need them to play on Sundays as well as Fridays.

I very much agree with you. I was thinking about this last night and came to a similar thought. The biggest problem with this offense is the whole attitiude of "we take what the defense gives us". Do they honestly think the defense is going to give them the keys to a win? Of course not, the defense is going to do everything they can to limit the offense and there we are... playing right into their hands. The Bills need to dictate to the defense. But how do they do that? Just as you said. Run the damn ball. We have 2 top flight RBs and a solid run blocking line. AVP needs to set up a run first offense. Pound it down the defense's throats. Loosen them up screens and then hit them with timing patterns to the WRs. And stop worrying about whether or not every play gets your 10 yards. Yes, when you run the ball plenty of runs will be stopped at the line. Screens will be shut down. But, its about dictating to the defense and wearing them down. I said it before; I'd cut the play book down to about 12 plays and run them consistently. I'd limit Trent's reads to no more than 2 recievers. He needs to drop back, look once and throw on 2. He's obviously still too slow to go throw all his reads and figure out which one is the best option then throw it. Not only is he too slow, but the line can't hold their blocks for the 5-6 seconds he needs to do that. Simplify the offense, simplify the reads, dictate with Lynch and Jackson, and consider putting a shock collar on Trent and zap his ass ever time he dumps off Fine.

Agreed. I'm all for it. Run Lynch and Jackson 25 times each.

Exactly. Too many people either don't understand the game or are just looking for unnecessary reasons to bash Jauron. We had the ball to end the half. We then got the opening kickoff of the 2nd half. That's an opportunity to score 14 unanswered points with the Saints offense not even stepping on the field. And that is exactly why so many coaches defer. Of course, you have to have a competent offense to score those points which seems like a much more appropriate reason to bash the coaching staff to me.

Well there ya have it. While great teams like Detroit and Houston can get their single good WR open each week and throw him the ball, the Bills need a three #1 WRs so that someone can get open.

I saw that too. And remember thinking... wow, now that was impressive! Little did I realize at the time that Trent apparently has only one good throw per game. I still wonder... does Trent suck because he's still young and learning to read defenses? Or does he just suck? But he does seem to make more bad decisions than good.

Post #43, bizell brings it up. Post #46, you stated TE had the game in the bag. Post #47, I refuted that he had it in the bag based on his stats from the game. So by my count (granted I didn't use a calculator to do the math), I was the 3rd person to bring TE's performance in that game into the discussion.

Ivy League schools.

First of all.... what car do you drive? B. It would be more believable if you were quoting sources deep within the organization.

That's an interesting point I haven't thought about. I don't recall when Whitner got injured? Does that coincide with Pierre Thomas' running gains? It wouldn't be the first time that a safety got injured and a team's run defense suffered dramatically. Maybe we should line TO and Evans up in the slot? Put Fine and Jackson as wideouts and see what happens. It would be an interesting exercise to say the least. Would Trent go into spasms in this bizarro world of throwing to WRs or would he search the field in vain looking for Fine while TO and Evans have a meeting in the middle of the field and talk about the latest designer invisibility cloak fashions?

No, you said the defense played poorly. I simply refuted that. Then you tried, rather unsuccessfully, to argue your point that the defense did indeed play poorly. I continued to refute your statements. Then you brought up Edwards' great performance in the season opener. I simply refuted that as well. I actually read this thread, initially, because I enjoy RR's insights on the games. I was just disheartened to see someone missing the forest for the trees, again. And felt it warranted a response.

Point taken. That was a rather low point in the game by all other accounts as well. But, yeah the boo birds were out quite a bit on other plays as well. So probably not a good example to use for my argument. I'll still contend that the team gave up after that, though.

How do you figure that? Trent was 15 for 25 with 212 yards. Brady was 39 of 53 with 378 yards. Trent was completely outplayed! You can't win with only 200 yards passing against a high scoring team like the Pats*.

oorrrrrrr.. it could be because he was carrying the ball loosely trying to make a juke as the Saint defender hit it and knocked it out.

Our defense did plenty of that yesterday. Schobel even got a meaningful sack and forced fumble when the Saints were in FG range and driving for more in the first half. Kelsay was all over the place and actually sacked the QB rather than just shaking his hand. For the majority of the game the defense did do their job. During the first drive I was screaming for them to get off the field on 3rd down. By the end of the second quarter, I couldn't even be mad about that.. because they were. I'm not sure they were tired as much as they just gave up. Honestly, when Jauron called for the punt you could just feel the air suck out of the game. The boo's really picked up and the entire team completely slipped off the cliff. Even the offense, which was bad, had moved the ball a little. But, at that point, you could see them all just fold. It was almost like the players just all agreed.. ok, lets get outta here I got movie to watch tonight.

Agreed. Just another prime example of why I hate fantasy football. No one watches games any more. They just check stat sheets and highlight reels.

Sure. Just for fun, because hey.. you may have a point.. I checked the game recap on nfl.com. In the first half, the Saints had 63 yards rushing. In the 3rd quarter and through their first drive in the 4th quarter, they had 41 yards rushing. So that's 104 yards rushing. I wouldn't call that "running the ball down our throats". The game was still 10-7, with the Bills' offense doing absolutely nothing. Of course, had you watched the game, you'd know that up until this point in the game our defense did everything possible to stop the highest scoring offense in over 40 years, giving our offense ample opportunity to take the lead. It wasn't until the Saints took the ball at the 11 minute mark of the 4th quarter that they had one good run (P. Thomas had a 34 yard TD). That gave them a 10 point lead 17-7. Our offense still didn't do anything. We punted on 4th down with 7:30 left in the game. It was at that point that the team obviously gave up, because in the final seven minutes the Saints then ran it down our throats and added just about 85 yards to their run total. Imagine... had the offense did anything. I mean anything, and scored once. We could have been up 14-10 in the second half. With just a little effort it could have been 17-10. Then the Saints are doing a lot less running in the final minutes. But, again, for someone that doesn't actually watch the games, I guess its pointless to bring out these facts. So, never mind all this. Go ahead and continue to discredit the defense for their outstanding play.

I'm guessin he's in the locker room alone, because Jauron gave the rest of the team the day off.

By harping on this fact, you're proving 1 of 2 things: Either you work as an ESPN analyst or you follow football because of your fantasy football teams. Either way, you obviously did not watch the game or did not understand what was going on.

Or sit him and start someone that's healthy enough to play. I had visions of McGee getting torched by Ginn last year. Of course that's ok because McGee was injured and really shouldn't have been playing. If they've got no replacement at Center, then just punt the friggin ball every play. But stop putting injured players out there that just get abused by the opposing team and hurt the entire team.

Great another rookie/unknown backup gets to play the Bills and have a Pro Bowl worthy, career day against us while we get to hear our guys say things like "they did some things we hadn't seen before" in the post game press conference. Everyone will begin to talk about how good Henning is only to have him continue to start and suck balls against every other team in the league. Stop. I wanna get off.

The worst day in Bills' history, IMO. Unceremoniously cut Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, and Andre Reed. In one fell swoop they removed the team's all time leading pass rusher, running back, and wide receiver. If anyone is looking for why this team is cursed, I'd say that's enough bad Karma to last quite some time.

So if your Center is hurt and cannot snap the ball back in shotgun formation, why not tell Trent to get under center for the snap? Shouldn't the coaches at some point in time look at how their players are playing on the field and make some adjustment to try and improve that play?

It's hard to win an NFC game.

There's always gotta be someone that just likes to argue. I suppose that's you today. Because there can be no logical rationale for you to even begin to sidetrack a thread of decent comments with inane ramblings about how poor the defense played yesterday. Do you not recognize that we held the highest scoring Offense in 40 years to a paltry 10 points through more than 3 quarters. How is that anything but good? If our offense knew what a hot read was, knew how to run crossing routes, remembered what draw and screen plays were, or just converted 30% of their 3rd downs... maybe they could have contributed a little. But, our offense was absolutely putrid yesterday. They scored zero points, at home. Zero. That means they none. In other words, if points were food they were in Ethiopia. It doesn't matter how your defense plays, when your offense stays in the locker room, you're not going to win. And to even attempt to bring up the defense in the discussion is obtuse.